LETTER LXVII.
Miss Clarissa Harlowe, To Miss Howe.
In this Letter the Lady acquaints Miss Howe with Mr. Brand's Report; with her Sister's Proposals either that she will go abroad, or prosecute Mr. Lovelace. She complains of the severe Letters of her Uncle Antony and her Sister; but in milder terms than they deserved.
She sends her Dr. Lewen's Letter, and the Copy of her Answer to it.
She tells her of the difficulties she had been under to avoid seeing Mr. Lovelace. She gives her the contents of the Letter she wrote to him to divert him from his proposed visit: She is afraid, she says, that it is a step that is not strictly right, if Allegory or Metaphor be not allowable to one in her circumstances.
She informs her of her Cousin Morden's arrival and readiness to take her part with her relations; of his designed interview with Mr. Lovelace; and tells her what her apprehensions are upon it.
She gives her the purport of the conversation between her Aunt Hervey and Mrs. Norton. And then adds:
But were they ever so favourably inclined to me
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now, what can they do for me? I wish, and that for their sakes more than for my own, that they would yet relent---But I am very ill---I must drop my Pen---A sudden Faintness overspreads my heart---Excuse my crooked writing!---Adieu, my dear!---Adieu!
Three o'clock, Friday.
Once more, I resume my pen. I thought I had taken my last farewel of you. I never was so very oddly affected: Something that seemed totally to overwhelm my faculties---I don't know how to describe it---I believe I do amiss in writing so much, and taking too much upon me: But an active mind, tho' clouded by bodily illness, cannot be idle.
I'll see if the Air, and a discontinued attention, will help me. But if it will not, don't be concerned for me, my dear. I shall be happy. Nay, I am more so already, than of late I thought I could ever be in this life.---Yet how this body clings!---How it incumbers!
Seven o'clock.
I could not send this Letter away with so melancholy an ending, as you would have thought it. So I deferred closing it, till I saw how I should be on my return from my Airing: And now I must say, I am quite another thing: So alert!---that I could proceed with as much spirit as I began, and add more preachment to your lively subject, if I had not written more than enough upon it already.
I wish you would let me give you and Mr. Hickman joy. Do, my dear. I should take some to myself, if you would.
My respectful compliments to all your friends, as well to those I have the honour to know, as to those I do not know.
I have just now been surprised with a Letter from one whom I long ago gave up all thoughts of hearing
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from. From Mr. Wyerley. I will inclose it. You'll be surprised at it, as much as I was. This seems to be a man whom I might have reclaimed. But I could not love him. Yet I hope I never treated him with arrogance. Indeed, my dear, if I am not too partial to myself, I think I refused him with more gentleness, than you retain somebody else. And this recollection gives me less pain than I should have had in the other case, on receiving this instance of a generosity that affects me. I will also inclose the rough draught of my Answer, as soon as I have transcribed it.
If I begin another sheet, I shall write to the end of it: Wherefore I will only add, my prayers for your honour and prosperity, and for a long, long, happy life; and that, when it comes to be wound up, you may be as calm and as easy at quitting it, as I hope in God I shall be. I am, and will be, to the latest moment,
Your truly affectionate and obliged Servant,
Cl. Harlowe.