Clarissa, Volume 8 | Page 5

but not all that is come to my hand--for I

must own that my friends are very severe; too severe for any body, who
loves them not, to see their letters. You, my dear, would not call them
my friends, you said, long ago; but my relations: indeed I cannot call
them my relations, I think!----But I am ill; and therefore perhaps more
peevish than I should be. It is difficult to go out of ourselves to give a
judgment against ourselves; and yet, oftentimes, to pass a just judgment,
we ought.
I thought I should alarm you in the choice of my executor. But the sad
necessity I am reduced to must excuse me.
I shall not repeat any thing I have said before on that subject: but if
your objections will not be answered to your satisfaction by the papers
and letters I shall enclose, marked 1, 2, 3, 4, to 9, I must think myself in
another instance unhappy; since I am engaged too far (and with my
own judgment too) to recede.
As Mr. Belford has transcribed for me, in confidence, from his friend's
letters, the passages which accompany this, I must insist that you suffer
no soul but yourself to peruse them; and that you return them by the
very first opportunity; that so no use may be made of them that may do
hurt either to the original writer or to the communicator. You'll observe
I am bound by promise to this care. If through my means any mischief
should arise, between this humane and that inhuman libertine, I should
think myself utterly inexcusable.
I subjoin a list of the papers or letters I shall enclose. You must return
them all when perused.*
* 1. A letter from Miss Montague, dated . . . . Aug. 1. 2. A copy of my
answer . . . . . . . . . . . Aug. 3. 3. Mr. Belford's Letter to me, which will
show you what my request was to him, and his compliance with it; and
the desired ex- tracts from his friend's letters . . . . Aug. 3, 4. 4. A copy
of my answer, with thanks; and re- questing him to undertake the
executor- ship . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Aug. 4. 5. Mr. Belford's
acceptance of the trust . . Aug. 4. 6. Miss Montague's letter, with a
generous offer from Lord M. and the Ladies of that
family . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Aug. 7. 7. Mr. Lovelace's to

me . . . . . . . . . . . Aug. 7. 8. Copy of mine to Miss Montague, in answer
to her's of the day before . . . . . . . Aug. 8. 9. Copy of my answer to Mr.
Lovelace . . . . Aug. 11.
You will see by these several Letters, written and received in so little a
space of time (to say nothing of what I have received and written which
I cannot show you,) how little opportunity or leisure I can have for
writing my own story.
I am very much tired and fatigued--with--I don't know what--with
writing, I think--but most with myself, and with a situation I cannot
help aspiring to get out of, and above!
O my dear, the world we live in is a sad, a very sad world!----While
under our parents' protecting wings, we know nothing at all of it.
Book-learned and a scribbler, and looking at people as I saw them as
visiters or visiting, I thought I knew a great deal of it. Pitiable
ignorance!--Alas! I knew nothing at all!
With zealous wishes for your happiness, and the happiness of every one
dear to you, I am, and will ever be,
Your gratefully-affectionate CL. HARLOWE.

LETTER III
MR. ANTONY HARLOWE, TO MISS CL. HARLOWE [IN REPLY
TO HER'S TO HER UNCLE HARLOWE, OF THURSDAY, AUG.
10.] AUG. 12.
UNHAPPY GIRL!
As your uncle Harlowe chooses not to answer your pert letter to him;
and as mine, written to you before,* was written as if it were in the
spirit of prophecy, as you have found to your sorrow; and as you are
now making yourself worse than you are in your health, and better than
you are in your penitence, as we are very well assured, in order to move

compassion; which you do not deserve, having had so much warning:
for all these reasons, I take up my pen once more; though I had told
your brother, at his going to Edinburgh, that I would not write to you,
even were you to write to me, without letting