Clarissa Harlowe, or the History of a Young Lady - Volume 8 — Letter 2
MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE, TO MISS HOWE
FRIDAY, AUG.
11. I will send you a large packet, as you desire and expect; since I can do it by so safe a conveyance: 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 .
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1. 2. A copy of my answer .
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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 .
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Aug.
3, 4. 4. A copy of my answer, with thanks; and re- questing him to undertake the executor- ship .
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4. 5. Mr. Belford's acceptance of the trust .
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4. 6. Miss Montague's letter, with a generous offer from Lord M. and the Ladies of that family .
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7. 7. Mr. Lovelace's to me .
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7. 8. Copy of mine to Miss Montague, in answer to her's of the day before .
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8. 9. Copy of my answer to Mr. Lovelace .
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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.
