Is not my memory (said she once) given me for my benefit, and shall I make it my torment?  No, Harriet, I will leave that to be done by you wise ones, and see what you will get by it.

Why this, Charlotte, replied I, the wise ones may have a chance to get by it—­They will, very probably, by remembering past mistakes, avoid many inconveniencies into which forgetfulness will run you lively ones.

Well, well, returned she, we are not all of us born to equal honour.  Some of us are to be set up for warnings, some for examples:  and the first are generally of greater use to the world than the other.

Now, Charlotte, said I, do you destroy the force of your own argument.  Can the person who is singled out for the warning, be near so happy, as she that is set up for the example?

You are right as far as I know, Harriet:  but I obey the present impulse, and try to find an excuse afterwards for what that puts me upon:  and all the difference is this, as to the reward, I have a joy:  you a comfort:  but comfort is a poor word; and I can’t bear it.

So Biddy, in ‘The Tender Husband,’ would have said, Charlotte.  But poor as the word is with you and her, give me comfort rather than joy, if they must be separated.  But I see not but that a woman of my Charlotte’s happy turn may have both.

She tapped my cheek—­Take that, Harriet, for making a Biddy of me.  I believe, if you have not joy, you have comfort, in your severity.

My heart as well as my cheek glowed at the praises the earl and the lady both joined in (with a fervor that was creditable to their own hearts) of Sir Charles Grandison, while they told us what this man, and that woman of quality or consideration said of him.  Who would not be good?  What is life without reputation?  Do we not wish to be remembered with honour after death?  And what a share of it has this excellent man in his life!  —­May nothing, for the honour-sake of human nature, to which he is so great an ornament, ever happen to tarnish it!

They made me a hundred fine compliments.  I could not but be pleased at standing well in their opinion:  but, believe me, my dear, I did not enjoy their praises of me, as I did those they gave him.  Indeed, I had the presumption, from the approbation given to what they said of him by my own heart, to imagine myself a sharer in them, though not in his merits.  Oh, Lucy! ought there not to have been a relation between us, since what I have said, from what I found in myself on hearing him praised, is a demonstration of a regard for him superior to the love of self?

Adieu, my Lucy.  I know I have all your prayers.

Adieu, my dear!

LETTER VI

Miss Byron.—­In continuation
Saturday, April 1.

Dr. Bartlett is one of the kindest as well as best of men.  I believe he loves me as if I were his own child:  but good men must be affectionate men.  He received but this morning a letter from Sir Charles, and hastened to communicate some of its contents to me, though I could pretend to no other motive but curiosity for wishing to be acquainted with the proceedings of his patron.