re you,
notwithstanding my seeming levity, is wholly in your case.

As this letter is extremely whimsical, I will not send it until I can
accompany it with something more solid and better suited to your
unhappy circumstances; that is to say, to the present subject of our
correspondence. To-morrow, as I told you, will be wholly my own, and of
consequence yours. Adieu, therefore, till then.

LETTER III

MISS HOWE, TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE TUESDAY MORN. 7 O'CLOCK

My mother and cousin are already gone off in our chariot and four,
attended by their doughty 'squire on horseback, and he by two of his
own servants, and one of my mother's. They both love parade when they
go abroad, at least in compliment to one another; which shews, that
each thinks the other does. Robin is your servant and mine, and nobody's
else--and the day is all my own.

I must begin with blaming you, my dear, for your resolution not to
litigate for your right, if occasion were to be given you. Justice is
due to ourselves, as well as to every body else. Still more must I blame
you for declaring to your aunt and sister, that you will not: since (as
they will tell it to your father and brother) the declaration must needs
give advantage to spirits who have so little of that generosity for
which you are so much distinguished.

There never was a spirit in the world that would insult where it dared,
but it would creep and cringe where it dared not. Let me remind you of
a sentence of your own, the occasion for which I have forgotten: 'That
little spirits will always accommodate themselves to the temper of those
they would work upon: will fawn upon a sturdy-tempered person: will
insult the meek:'--And another given to Miss Biddulph, upon an occasion
you cannot forget:--'If we assume a dignity in what we say and do, and
take care not to disgrace by arrogance our own assumption, every body
will treat us with respect and deference.'

I remember that you once made an observation, which you said, you was
obliged to Mrs. Norton for, and she to her father, upon an excellent
preacher, who was but an indifferent liver: 'That to excel in theory,
and to excel in practice, generally required different talents; which
did not always meet in the same person.' Do you, my dear (to whom theory
and practice are the same thing in almost every laudable quality), apply
the observation to yourself, in this particular case, where resolution
is required; and where the perf