LETTER 102 [Commentary on Letters 102-105]
TO MISS ARABELLA HARLOWE [ENCLOSED TO MISS HOWE IN THE PRECEDING.]
ST. ALBAN'S, APR. 11.
MY DEAR SISTER,
I have, I confess, been guilty of an action which carries with it a rash and undutiful appearance. And I should have thought it an inexcusable
one, had I been used with less severity than I have been of late; and had I not had too great reason to apprehend, that I was to be made a sacrifice to a man I could not bear to think of. But what is done, is done--perhaps I could wish it had not; and that I had trusted to the
relenting of my dear and honourable parents.--Yet this from no other motives but those of duty to them.--To whom I am ready to return (if I may not be permitted to retire to The Grove) on conditions which I before offered to comply with.
Nor shall I be in any sort of dependence upon the person by whose means I have taken this truly-reluctant step, inconsistent with any reasonable
engagement I shall enter into, if I am not further precipitated. Let me not have it to say, now at this important crisis! that I have a sister, but not a friend in that sister. My reputation, dearer to me than life, (whatever you may imagine from the step I have taken,) is suffering. A
little lenity will, even yet, in a great measure, restore it, and make that pass for a temporary misunderstanding only, which otherwise will be a stain as durable as life, upon a creature who has already been treated
with great unkindness, to use no harsher a word.
Your affectionate
CL. HARLOWE.
I shall take it for a very great favour to have my clothes directly sent
me, together with fifty guineas, which you will find in my escritoire (of
which I enclose the key); as also of the divinity and miscellany classes
of my little library; and, if it be thought fit, my jewels--directed for
me, to be left till called for, at Mr. Osgood's, near Soho-square.
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