d incurring the
censure of being a miser, will not, prudently managed, cost fifty pounds
a year.

What a name have you got, at a less expense? And what an opportunity had
he of obtaining credit at a very small one, succeeding such a wretched
creature as Sir Oliver, in fortunes so vast?--Yet has he so behaved,
that the common phrase is applied to him, That Sir Oliver will never be
dead while Mr. Solmes lives.

The world, as I have often thought, ill-natured as it is said to be, is
generally more just in characters (speaking by what it feels) than is
usually apprehended: and those who complain most of its censoriousness,
perhaps should look inwardly for the occasion oftener than they do.

My heart is a little at ease, on the hopes that my mother will be able
to procure favour for me, and a deliverance from this man; and so I
have leisure to moralize. But if I had not, I should not forbear to
intermingle occasionally these sorts of remarks, because you command
me never to omit them when they occur to my mind: and not to be able
to make them, even in a more affecting situation, when one sits down
to write, would shew one's self more engaged to self, and to one's own
concerns, than attentive to the wishes of a friend. If it be said, that
it is natural so to be, what makes that nature, on occasions where a
friend may be obliged, or reminded of a piece of instruction, which
(writing down) one's self may be the better for, but a fault; which it
would set a person above nature to subdue?

LETTER XVIII

MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE, TO MISS HOWE SAT. MAR. 4.

Would you not have thought something might have been obtained in my
favour, from an offer so reasonable, from an expedient so proper, as I
imagine, to put a tolerable end, as from myself, to a correspondence I
hardly know how otherwise, with safety to some of my family, to get rid
of?--But my brother's plan, (which my mother spoke of, and of which I
have in vain endeavoured to procure a copy, with a design to take it to
pieces, and expose it, as I question not there is room to do,) joined
with my father's impatience of contradiction, are irresistible.

I have not been in bed all night; nor am I in the least drowsy.
Expectation, and hope, and doubt, (an uneasy state!) kept me
sufficiently wakeful. I stept down at my usual time, that it might not
be known I had not been in bed; and gave directions in the family way.

About eight o'clock, Shorey came to me from my mot