Alas, my dear Clara, how is the life you have restored me imbittered by your absence. What satisfaction can there be in my recovery, when I am still preyed upon by a more violent disorder? Cruel Clara! to leave me, when I stand most in need of your assistance. You are to be absent eight days, and perhaps by that time my fate will be determined, and it will be out of your power to see me any more. Oh if you did but know his horrid proposals, and the manner of his stating them! to elope——to follow him——to be carried off——What a wretch! But of whom do I complain, my heart, my own base heart has said a thousand times more than ever he has mentioned. Good God, if he knew all! Oh it would hasten my ruin——I should be hurried to destruction, be forced to go with him——I shudder at the very thought.
But has my father then sold me? Yes, he has considered his daughter as his merchandize, and consigned her with as little remorse, as he would a bale of goods. He purchases his own ease and quiet, at the dear price of all my future comfort, nay of my life itself——for I see but too well, I can never survive it. Barbarous, unnatural, unrelenting father! Does he deserve?——But why do I talk of deserving? he is the best of fathers, and the only crime I can alledge against him, is his desire of marrying me to his friend. But my mother, my dear mother, what has she done? Alas, too much; she has loved me too much, and that very love has been my ruin.
What shall I do, Clara? What will become of me? Hans is not yet come. I am at a loss how to convey this letter to you. Before you receive it, before you return——perhaps a vagabond, abandoned, ruined and forlorn. It is over, it is over: the time is come. A day——an hour——perhaps a moment——but who can resist their fate?——Oh wherever I live, wherever I die, whether in honour or dishonour, in plenty or poverty, in pleasure or in despair, remember, I beseech you, your dear, dear friend. But misfortunes too frequently produce changes in our affections. If ever I forget you, mine must be altered indeed!
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