For I know not what name you are permitted, or choose to go by.
You have filled us all with distraction. My father, in the first
agitations of his mind, on discovering your wicked, your shameful
elopement, imprecated on his knees a fearful curse upon you. Tremble
at the recital of it!--No less, than 'that you may meet your punishment
both here and hereafter, by means of the very wretch in whom you have
chosen to place your wicked confidence.'
Your clothes will not be sent you. You seen, by leaving them behind you,
to have been secure of them, whenever you demanded them, but perhaps you
could think of nothing but meeting your fellow:--nothing but how to get
off your forward self!--For every thing seems to have been forgotten
but what was to contribute to your wicked flight.--Yet you judged right,
perhaps, that you would have been detected had you endeavoured to get
away with your clothes.--Cunning creature! not to make one step that we
would guess at you by! Cunning to effect your own ruin, and the disgrace
of all the family!
But does the wretch put you upon writing for your things, for fear you
should be too expensive to him?--That's it, I suppose.
Was there ever a giddier creature?--Yet this is the celebrated, the
blazing Clarissa--Clarissa what? Harlowe, no doubt!--And Harlowe it will
be, to the disgrace of us all!
Your drawings and your pieces are all taken down; as is also your
whole-length picture, in the Vandyke taste, from your late parlour: they
are taken down, and thrown into your closet, which will be nailed up,
as if it were not a part of the house, there to perish together: For who
can bear to see them? Yet, how did they use to be shown to every body:
the former, for the magnifying of your dainty finger-works; the latter,
for the imputed dignity (dignity now in the dust!) of your boasted
figure; and this by those fond parents from whom you have run away with
so much, yet with so little contrivance!
My brother vows revenge upon your libertine--for the family's sake he
vows it--not for yours!--for he will treat you, he declares, like a
common creature, if ever he sees you: and doubts not that this will be
your fate.
My uncle Harlowe renounces you for ever.
So does my uncle Antony.
So does my aunt Hervey.
So do I, base, unworthy creature! the disgrace of a good family, and
the property of an infamous rake, as questionless you will soon find
yourself, if you are not already.
Your books, since they have not taught you what belongs to your family,
to your sex, and to your education, will not be sent to you. Your money
neither. Nor yet the jewels so undeservedly made yours. For it is wished
you may be seen a beggar along London-streets.
If all this is heavy, lay your hand to your heart, and ask yourself, why
you have deserved it?
Every man whom your pride taught you to reject with scorn (Mr. Solmes
excepted, who, however, has reason to rejoice that he missed you)
triumphs in your shameful elopement, and now knows how to account for
his being refused.
Your worthy Norton is ashamed of you, and mingles her tears with your
mother's; both reproaching themselves for their shares in you, and in so
fruitless an education.