LETTER LXXXVII.
Miss Howe, To Miss Arabella Harlowe.
Sat. July 22.
It may be the misfortune of some people to engage every-body's notice: Others may be the happier, tho' they may be the more envious, for nobody's thinking them worthy of any. But one would
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be glad people had the sense to be thankful for that want of consequence, which subjected them not to hazards they would hardly have been able to manage under.
I own to you, that had it not been for the prudent advice of that admirable Somebody (whose principal fault is the superiority of her talents, and whose misfortune to be brother'd and sister'd by a couple of creatures, who are not able to comprehend her excellencies) I might at one time have been plunged into difficulties. But, pert as the superlatively pert may think me, I thought not myself wiser, because I was older; nor for that poor reason qualified to prescribe to, much less to maltreat, a genius so superior.
I repeat it with gratitude, that the dear creature's advice was of very great service to me---And this before my Mother's watchfulness became necessary. But how it would have fared with me, I cannot say, had I had a Brother or Sister, who had deemed it their interest, as well as a gratification of their sordidenvy, to misrepresent me.
Your admirable Sister, in effect, saved you, Miss, as well as me---With this difference---You, against your will---Me, with mine:---And but for your own Brother, and his own Sister, would not have been lost herself.
Would to Heaven both Sisters had been obliged with their own wills!---The most admirable of her Sex would never then have been out of her Father's house!---You, Miss---I don't know what had become of you.---But, let what would have happened, you would have met with the humanity you have not shewn, whether you had deserved it or not:---Nor, at worst, lost either a kind Sister, or a pitying Friend, in the most excellent of Sisters.
But why run I into length to such a poor thing?---Why push I so weak an adversary; whose first Letter is all low malice, and whose next is made up
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of falshood and inconsistence, as well as spite and ill-manners? Yet I was willing to give you a part of my mind. Call for more of it; it shall be at your service: From one, who, tho' she thanks God she is not your Sister, is not your Enemy: But that she is not the latter, is with-held but by two considerations; one, that you bear, tho' unworthily, a relation to a Sister so excellent; the other, that you are not of consequence enough to engage any-thing but the pity and contempt of
A. H.