Clarissa, Volume 8 | Page 8

young lady, are the tests not only of
prudence but of virtue.
I think, I must own to you, that, since Mr. Brand's letter has been
received, I have a renewed prohibition to attend you. However, if you
will give me leave, that shall not detain me from you. Nor would I stay
for that leave, if I were not in hopes that, in this critical situation, I may
be able to do you service here.
I have often had messages and inquiries after your health from the
truly-reverend Dr. Lewen, who has always expressed, and still
expresses, infinite concern for you. He entirely disapproves of the
measures of the family with regard to you. He is too much indisposed
to go abroad. But, were he in good health, he would not, as I
understand, visit at Harlowe-place, having some time since been

unhandsomely treated by your brother, on his offering to mediate for
you with your family.
***
I am just now informed that your cousin Morden is arrived in England.
He is at Canterbury, it seems, looking after some concerns he has there;
and is soon expected in these parts. Who knows what may arise from
his arrival? God be with you, my dearest Miss Clary, and be your
comforter and sustainer. And never fear but He will; for I am sure, I am
very sure, that you put your whole trust in Him.
And what, after all, is this world, on which we so much depend for
durable good, poor creatures that we are!--When all the joys of it, and
(what is a balancing comfort) all the troubles of it, are but momentary,
and vanish like a morning dream!
And be this remembered, my dearest young lady, that worldly joy
claims no kindred with the joys we are bid to aspire after. These latter
we must be fitted for by affliction and disappointment. You are
therefore in the direct road to glory, however thorny the path you are in.
And I had almost said, that it depends upon yourself, by your patience,
and by your resignedness to the dispensation, (God enabling you, who
never fails the true penitent, and sincere invoker,) to be an heir of a
blessed immortality.
But this glory, I humbly pray, that you may not be permitted to enter
into, ripe as you are so soon to be for it, till, with your gentle hand, (a
pleasure I have so often, as you now, promised to myself,) you have
closed the eyes of
Your maternally-affectionate JUDITH NORTON.

LETTER VI
MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE, TO MRS. NORTON THURSDAY,
AUG. 27.

What Mr. Brand, or any body, can have written or said to my prejudice,
I cannot imagine; and yet some evil reports have gone out against me;
as I find by some hints in a very severe letter written to me by my uncle
Antony. Such a letter as I believe was never written to any poor
creature, who, by ill health of body, as well as of mind, was before
tottering on the brink of the grave. But my friends may possibly be
better justified than the reporters--For who knows what they may have
heard?
You give me a kind caution, which seems to imply more than you
express, when you advise me against countenancing visiters that may
discredit me. You have spoken quite out. Surely, I have had afflictions
enow to strengthen my mind, and to enable it to bear the worst that can
now happen. But I will not puzzle myself by conjectural evils; as I
might perhaps do, if I had not enow that were certain. I shall hear all,
when it is thought proper that I should. Mean time, let me say, for your
satisfaction, that I know not that I have any thing criminal or
disreputable to answer for either in word or deed, since the fatal 10th of
April last.
You desire an account of what passes between me and my friends; and
also particulars or brief heads of my sad story, in order to serve me as
occasion shall offer. My dear good Mrs. Norton, you shall have a whole
packet of papers, which I have sent to my Miss Howe, when she returns
them; and you shall have likewise another packet, (and that with this
letter,) which I cannot at present think of sending to that dear friend for
the sake of my own relations; whom, without seeing that packet, she is
but too ready to censure heavily. From these you will be able to collect
a great deal of my story. But for what is previous to these papers, and
which more particularly relates to what I have suffered from Mr.
Lovelace, you must have patience; for at present I have neither head
nor heart for