LETTER 320: MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE TO MISS HOWE
[Summary]
Thursday, July 13
I Am extremely concerned,
my dear Miss Howe, for being primarily the occasion of the apprehensions you
have of this wicked man's vindictive attempts. What a wide-spreading error is
mine!-
If I find that he sets on foot any machination against you,
or Mr. Hickman, I do assure you I will consent to prosecute him, although I were
sure I should not survive my first appearance at the bar he should be arraigned
at.
I own the justice of your mother's arguments on that subject;
but must say that I think there are circumstances in my particular case which
will excuse me, although (on a slighter occasion than that above apprehended) I
should decline to appear against him. I have said that I may one day enter more
particularly into this subject.
Your messenger has now indeed seen me. I talked with him on
the imposture put upon him at Hampstead: and am sorry to have reason to say that
had not the; poor young man been very simple, and very self-sufficient, he had
not been so grossly deluded. Mrs. Bevis has the same plea to make for herself. A
good-natured, thoughtless woman; not used to converse with so vile and so
specious a deceiver as him who made his advantage of both these shallow
creatures.
I think I cannot be more private than where I am. I hope I am
safe. All the risk I run is in going out and returning from morning prayers;
which I have two or three times ventured to do; once at Lincoln's Inn chapel, at
eleven; once at Dunstan's, Fleet Street, at seven in the morning, in a chair
both times; and twice at six in the morning, at the neighbouring church in
Covent Garden. The wicked wretches I have escaped from will not, I hope, come to
church to look for me; especially at so early prayers; and I have fixed upon the
privatest pew in the latter church to hide myself in; and perhaps I may lay out
a little matter in an ordinary gown, by way of disguise; my face half hid by my
mob-I am very careless, my dear, of my appearance now. Neat and clean takes up
the whole of my attention.
The man's name, at whose house I lodge, is Smith-a
glove-maker, as well as seller. His wife is the shopkeeper. A dealer also in
stockings, ribands, snuff and perfumes. A matron-like woman, plain-hearted, and
prudent. The husband an honest, industrious man. And they live in good
understanding with each other. A proof with me that their hearts are right; for
where a married couple live together upon ill terms, it is a sign, I think, that
each knows something amiss of the other, either with regard to temper or morals,
which if the world knew as well as themselves, it would as little like them as
such people like each other. Happy the marriage where neither man nor wife has
any wilful or premeditated evil in their general conduct to reproach the other
with!-for even persons who have bad hearts will have a veneration for those who
have good ones.
Two neat rooms, with plain, but clean furniture, on the first
floor, are mine; one they call the dining-room.
There is, up another pair of stairs, a very worthy widow
lodger, Mrs. Lovick by name; who, although of low fortunes, is much respected,
as Mrs Smith assures me, by people of condition of her acquaintance, for her
piety; prudence, and understanding. With her I propose to be well acquainted.
I thank you, my dear, for your kind, your seasonable advice
and consolation. I hope I shall have more grace given me than to despond, in the
religious sense of the word—especially as I can apply to myself the comfort
you give me that neither my will nor my inconsiderateness has contributed to my
calamity. But, nevertheless, the irreconcileableness of my relations, whom I
love with an unabated reverence; my apprehensions of fresh violences (this
wicked man, I doubt, will not yet let me rest); my destituteness of protection;
my youth, my sex, my unacquaintedness with the world subjecting me to insults;
my reflections on the scandal I have given, added to the sense of the
indignities I have received from a man of whom I deserved not ill; all together
will undoubtedly bring on the effect that cannot be undesirable to me—the
slower however, perhaps from my natural good constitution; and as I presume to
imagine, from principles which I hope will, in due time, and by due reflection,
set me above the sense of all worldly disappointments.
At present my head is much disordered. I have not indeed
enjoyed it with any degree of clearness since the violence done to that, and to
my heart too, by the wicked arts of the abandoned creatures I was cast among.
I must have more conflicts. At times I find myself not
subdued enough to my condition. I will welcome those conflicts as they come, as
probationary ones-But yet my father's malediction-yet I hope even that may be
made of so much use to me as to cause me to double my attention to render it
ineffectual.
All I will at present add are my thanks to your mother for
her indulgence to us. Due compliments to Mr. Hickman; and m request that you
will believe me to be, to my last hour, and beyond it, if possible, my beloved
friend, and my dearer self (for what is now myself?),
Your
obliged and affectionate
CLARISSA HARLOWE