LETTER XVII.
Miss Clarissa Harlowe, To Miss Montague.
Thursday, Aug. 3.
Dear Madam,
I am infinitely obliged to you for your kind and condescending Letter. A Letter, however, which heightens my regrets, as it gives me a new instance of what a happy creature I might have been in an alliance so much approved of by such worthy Ladies; and which, on their accounts, and on that of Lord M. would have been so reputable to myself, and was once so desirable.
But indeed, indeed, Madam, my heart sincerely repulses the man, who, descended from such a family, could be guilty, first, of such premeditated violence as he has been guilty of; and, as he knows, further intended me, on the night previous to the day he set out for Berkshire; and, next, pretending to spirit, could be so mean, as to wish to lift into that family a person he was capable of abasing into a companionship with the most abandoned of her Sex.
Allow me then, dear Madam, to declare with fervour, that I think I never could deserve to be ranked with the Ladies of a family so splendid and so noble, if, by vowing Love and Honour at the Altar to such a violator, I could sanctify, as I may say, his unprecedented and elaborate wickedness.
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Permit me, however, to make one request to my good Lord M. and to Lady Betty and Lady Sarah, and to your kind self, and your Sister---It is, That you will all be pleased to join your authority and interests to prevail upon Mr. Lovelace not to molest me further.
Be pleased to tell him, That, if I am designed for Life, it will be very cruel in him to attempt to hunt me out of it; for I am determined never to see him more, if I can help it. The more cruel, because he knows, that I have nobody to defend me from him: Nor do I wish to engage any-body to his hurt, or to their own.
If I am, on the other hand, destined for Death, it will be no less cruel, if he will not permit me to die in peace---Since a peaceable and happy end I wish him. Indeed I do.
Every worldly good attend you, dear Madam, and every branch of the honourable family, is the wish of one, whose misfortune it is, that she is obliged to disclaim any other title, than That of,
Dear Madam,
Your and Their obliged and faithful Servant,
Clarissa Harlowe.