LETTER LXVIII
MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE, TO MISS MONTAGUETHURSDAY, AUG. 3.
DEAR MADAM,
I am infinitely obliged to you for your kind and condescending letter. Aletter, however, which heightens my regrets, as it gives me a newinstance of what a happy creature I might have been in an alliance somuch approved of by such worthy ladies; and which, on their accounts, andon that of Lord M. would have been so reputable to myself, and was onceso desirable.
But indeed, indeed, Madam, my heart sincerely repulses the man who,descended from such a family, could be guilty, first, of suchpremeditated violence as he has been guilty of; and, as he knows, fartherintended 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 intothat family a person he was capable of abasing into a companionship withthe most abandoned of her sex.
Allow me then, dear Madam, to declare with favour, that I think I nevercould 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 couldsanctify, as I may say, his unprecedented and elaborate wickedness.
Permit me, however, to make one request to my good Lord M., and to LadyBetty, 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 toprevail upon Mr. Lovelace not to molest me farther.
Be pleased to tell him, that, if I am designed for life, it will be verycruel in him to attempt to hunt me out of it; for I am determined neverto see him more, if I can help it. The more cruel, because he knows thatI have nobody to defend me from him: nor do I wish to engage any body tohis 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 endI wish him; indeed I do.
Every worldly good attend you, dear Madam, and every branch of thehonourable family, is the wish of one, whose misfortune it is that she isobliged to disclaim any other title than that of,
Dear Madam,Your and their obliged and faithful servant,CLARISSA HARLOWE.