I have long been sick of myself: and now I am
more and more so. But let me not lose your good
opinion. If I do, that loss will complete the
misfortunes of
Your
CL. Harlowe.
Miss Clarissa Harlowe, to miss
Howe
Sunday night, April 16.
I may send to you, although you are forbid to write
to me; may I not?—
For that is not a correspondence (is it?) where letters
are not answered.
I am strangely at a loss what to think of this man.
He is a perfect Proteus. I can but write according
to the shape he assumes at the time. Don’t
think me the changeable person, I beseech you, if in
one letter I contradict what I wrote in another; nay,
if I seem to contradict what I said in the same letter:
for he is a perfect camelion; or rather more variable
than the camelion; for that, it is said, cannot assume
the red and the white; but this man can. And
though black seems to be his natural colour, yet has
he taken great pains to make me think him nothing
but white.
But you shall judge of him as I proceed. Only,
if I any where appear to you to be credulous, I beg
you to set me right: for you are a stander-by,
as you say in a former*—Would to Heaven
I were not to play! for I think, after all, I am held
to a desperate game.
* See Letter VIII. of this volume.
Before I could finish my last to you, he sent up twice
more to beg admittance. I returned for answer,
that I would see him at my own time: I would
neither be invaded nor prescribed to.
Considering how we parted, and my delaying his audience,
as he sometimes calls it, I expected him to be in
no very good humour, when I admitted of his visit;
and by what I wrote, you will conclude that I was not.
Yet mine soon changed, when I saw his extreme humility
at his entrance, and heard what he had to say.
I have a letter, Madam, said he, from Lady Betty Lawrance,
and another from my cousin Charlotte. But of
these more by-and-by. I came now to make my
humble acknowledgement to you upon the arguments that
passed between us so lately.
I was silent, wondering what he was driving at.
I am a most unhappy creature, proceeded he: unhappy
from a strange impatiency of spirit, which I cannot
conquer. It always brings upon me deserved humiliation.
But it is more laudable to acknowledge, than to persevere
when under the power of conviction.
I was still silent.
I have been considering what you proposed to me, Madam,
that I should acquiesce with such terms as you should
think proper to comply with, in order to a reconciliation
with your friends.
Well, Sir.
And I find all just, all just, on your side; and all
impatience, all inconsideration on mine.
I stared, you may suppose. Whence this change,
Sir? and so soon?
