er to have
Mr. Lovelace. This approbation is so right a thing, give me leave to
say, from the nature of the case, and from the strict honour and true
dignity of mind, which I always admired in my Anna Howe, that I could
hardly tell to what, but to my evil destiny, which of late would not let
me please any body, to attribute the advice you gave me to the contrary.

But let not the ill state of my health, and what that may naturally tend
to, sadden you. I have told you, that I will not run away from life, nor
avoid the means that may continue it, if God see fit: and if He do not,
who shall repine at His will!

If it shall be found that I have not acted unworthy of your love, and of
my own character, in my greater trials, that will be a happiness to both
on reflection.

The shock which you so earnestly advise me to try to get above, was a
shock, the greatest that I could receive. But, my dear, as it was not
occasioned by my fault, I hope I am already got above it. I hope I am.

I am more grieved (at times however) for others, than for myself. And so
I ought. For as to myself, I cannot but reflect that I have had an
escape, rather than a loss, in missing Mr. Lovelace for a husband--even
had he not committed the vilest of all outrages.

Let any one, who knows my story, collect his character from his behaviour
to me before that outrage; and then judge whether it was in the least
probable that such a man should make me happy. But to collect his
character from his principles with regard to the sex in general, and from
his enterprizes upon many of them, and to consider the cruelty of his
nature, and the sportiveness of his invention, together with the high
opinion he has of himself, it will not be doubted that a wife of his must
have been miserable; and more miserable if she loved him, than she could
have been were she to be indifferent to him.

A twelvemonth might very probably have put a period to my life; situated
as I was with my friends; persecuted and harassed as I had been by my
brother and sister; and my very heart torn in pieces by the wilful, and
(as it is now apparent) premeditated suspenses of the man, whose
gratitude I wished to engage, and whose protection I was the more
entitled to expect, as he had robbed me of every other, and reduced me to
an absolute dependence upon himself. Indeed I once thought that it was
all his view to bring me to this, (as he hated my family;) and
uncomfortable enough for m