I
do amiss in writing so much, and taking too much upon me: but an active
mind, though clouded by bodily illness, cannot be idle.

I'll see if the air, and a discontinued attention, will help me. But, if
it will not, don't be concerned for me, my dear. I shall be happy. Nay,
I am more so already than of late I thought I could ever be in this life.
--Yet how this body clings!--How it encumbers!

SEVEN O'CLOCK.

I could not send this letter away with so melancholy an ending, as you
would have thought it. So I deferred closing it, till I saw how I should
be on my return from my airing: and now I must say I am quite another
thing: so alert! that I could proceed with as much spirit as I began, and
add more preachment to your lively subject, if I had not written more
than enough upon it already.

I wish you would let me give you and Mr. Hickman joy. Do, my dear. I
should take some to myself, if you would.

My respectful compliments to all your friends, as well to those I have
the honour to know, as to those I do not know.

***

I have just now been surprised with a letter from one whom I long ago
gave up all thoughts of hearing from. From Mr. Wyerley. I will enclose
it. You'll be surprised at it as much as I was. This seems to be a man
whom I might have reclaimed. But I could not love him. Yet I hope I
never treated him with arrogance. Indeed, my dear, if I am not too
partial to myself, I think I refused him with more gentleness, than you
retain somebody else. And this recollection gives me less pain than I
should have had in the other case, on receiving this instance of a
generosity that affects me. I will also enclose the rough draught of my
answer, as soon as I have transcribed it.

If I begin another sheet, I shall write to the end of it: wherefore I
will only add my prayers for your honour and prosperity, and for a long,
long, happy life; and that, when it comes to be wound up, you may be as
calm and as easy at quitting it as I hope in God I shall be. I am, and
will be, to the latest moment,

Your truly affectionate and obliged servant,
CL. HARLOWE.

LETTER XXXIV

MR. WYERLEY, TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE
WEDNESDAY, AUG. 23.

DEAREST MADAM,

You will be surprised to find renewed, at this distance of time, an
address so positively though so politely discouraged: but, however it be
received, I must renew it. Every body has heard that you have been
vilely treated by a man who, to