aving been only in
a manner tried on, would answer for any present occasion. Jewels I have
of my grandmother's, which want only new-setting: another set I have,
which on particular days I used to wear. Although these are not sent me,
I have no doubt, being merely personals, but they will, when I should
send for them in another name: till when I should not choose to wear any.

'As to your complaints of my diffidences, and the like, I appeal to your
own heart, if it be possible for you to make my case your own for one
moment, and to retrospect some parts of your behaviour, words, and
actions, whether I am not rather to be justified than censured: and
whether, of all the men in the world, avowing what you avow, you ought
not to think so. If you do not, let me admonish you, Sir, from the very
great mismatch that then must appear to be in our minds, never to seek,
nor so much as to wish, to bring about the most intimate union of
interests between yourself and

CLARISSA HARLOWE.
MAY 20.'

***

The original of this charming paper, as Dorcas tells me, was torn almost
in two. In one of her pets, I suppose! What business have the sex,
whose principal glory is meekness, and patience, and resignation, to be
in a passion, I trow?--Will not she who allows herself such liberties as
a maiden take greater when married?

And a wife to be in a passion!--Let me tell the ladies, it is an
impudent thing, begging their pardon, and as imprudent as impudent, for a
wife to be in a passion, if she mean not eternal separation, or wicked
defiance, by it: For is it not rejecting at once all that expostulatory
meekness, and gentle reasoning, mingled with sighs as gentle, and graced
with bent knees, supplicating hands, and eyes lifted up to your imperial
countenance, just running over, that you should make a reconciliation
speedy, and as lasting as speedy? Even suppose the husband is in the
wrong, will not this being so give the greater force to her
expostulation?

Now I think of it, a man should be in the wrong now-and-then, to make his
wife shine. Miss Howe tells my charmer, that adversity is her shining-
time. 'Tis a generous thing in a man to make his wife shine at his own
expense: to give her leave to triumph over him by patient reasoning: for
were he to be too imperial to acknowledge his fault on the spot, she will
find the benefit of her duty and submission in future, and in the high
opinion he will conceive of her prudence