my shocking
situation should never have been given by me, of all creatures; since I
am unequal, utterly unequal, to the circumstances to which my
inconsideration has reduced me?--What! I to challenge a man for a
husband!--I to exert myself to quicken the delayer in his resolutions!
and, having as you think lost an opportunity, to begin to try to recall
it, as from myself, and for myself! to threaten him, as I may say, into
the marriage state!--O my dear! if this be right to be done, how
difficult is it, where modesty and self (or where pride, if you please)
is concerned, to do that right? or, to express myself in your words, to
be father, mother, uncle, to myself!--especially where one thinks a
triumph over one is intended.

You say, you have tried Mrs. Norton's weight with my mother--bad as the
returns are which my application by Mr. Hickman has met with, you tell
me, 'that you have not acquainted me with all the bad, nor now, perhaps,
ever will.' But why so, my dear? What is the bad, what can be the bad,
which now you will never tell me of?--What worse, than renounce me! and
for ever! 'My uncle, you say, believes me ruined: he declares that he
can believe every thing bad of a creature who could run away with a man:
and they have all made a resolution not to stir an inch in my favour; no,
not to save my life!'--Have you worse than this, my dear, behind?--Surely
my father has not renewed his dreadful malediction!--Surely, if so, my
mother has not joined in it! Have my uncles given their sanction, and
made it a family act? And themselves thereby more really faulty, than
ever THEY suppose me to be, though I the cause of that greater fault in
them?--What, my dear, is the worst, that you will leave for ever
unrevealed?

O Lovelace! why comest thou not just now, while these black prospects are
before me? For now, couldst thou look into my heart, wouldst thou see a
distress worthy of thy barbarous triumph!

***

I was forced to quit my pen. And you say you have tried Mrs. Norton's
weight with my mother?

What is done cannot be remedied: but I wish you had not taken a step of
this importance to me without first consulting me. Forgive me, my dear,
but I must tell you that that high-soul'd and noble friendship which you
have ever avowed with so obliging and so uncommon a warmth, although it
has been always the subject of my grateful admiration, has been often the
ground of my apprehension, because of its unbri