LETTER II

MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE, TO MISS HOWE
HARLOWE-PLACE, JAN. 13.


How you oppress me, my dearest friend, with your politeness! I cannot
doubt your sincerity; but you should take care, that you give me not
reason from your kind partiality to call in question your judgment.
You do not distinguish that I take many admirable hints from you, and
have the art to pass them upon you for my own: for in all you do, in
all you say, nay, in your very looks (so animated!) you give lessons
to one who loves you and observes you as I love you and observe you,
without knowing that you do--So pray, my dear, be more sparing of your
praise for the future, lest after this confession we should suspect
that you secretly intend to praise yourself, while you would be
thought only to commend another.

Our family has indeed been strangely discomposed.--Discomposed!--It
has been in tumults, ever since the unhappy transaction; and I have
borne all the blame; yet should have had too much concern from myself,
had I been more justly spared by every one else.

For, whether it be owing to a faulty impatience, having been too
indulgently treated to be inured to blame, or to the regret I have to
hear those censured on my account, whom it is my duty to vindicate; I
have sometimes wished, that it had pleased God to have taken me in my
last fever, when I had every body's love and good opinion; but oftener
that I had never been distinguished by my grandfather as I was: since
that distinction has estranged from me my brother's and sister's