MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE, TO MISS HOWE
JAN. 20


I have been hindered from prosecuting my intention. Neither nights
nor mornings have been my own. My mother has been very ill; and would
have no other nurse but me. I have not stirred from her bedside (for
she kept her bed); and two nights I had the honour of sharing it with
her.

Her disorder was a very violet colic. The contentions of these
fierce, these masculine spirits, and the apprehension of mischiefs
that may arise from the increasing animosity which all here have
against Mr. Lovelace, and his too well known resenting and intrepid
character, she cannot bear. Then the foundations laid, as she dreads,
for jealousy and heart-burnings in her own family, late so happy and
so united, afflict exceedingly a gentle and sensible mind, which has
from the beginning, on all occasions, sacrificed its own inward
satisfaction to outward peace. My brother and sister, who used very
often to jar, are now so entirely one, and are so much together,
(caballing was the word that dropt from my mother's lips, as if at
unawares,) that she is very fearful of the consequences that may
follow;--to my prejudice, perhaps, is her kind concern; since she sees
that they behave to me every hour with more and more shyness and
reserve: yet, would she but exert that authority which the superiority
of her fine talents gives her, all these family feuds might perhaps be
extinguished in their but yet beginnings; especially as she may be
assured that all fitting concessions shall be made by me, not only as
my brother and sister are my elders, but for the sake of so excellent
and so indulgent a mother.