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journal-wise, to amuse and employ her time, in hopes some opportunity
might offer to send it to her friends; and, as was her constant view,
that she might afterwards thankfully look back upon the dangers she had
escaped, when they should be happily overblown, as in time she hoped they
would be; and that then she might examine, and either approve or repent
of her own conduct in them.
LETTER XXXII
O MY DEAREST FATHER AND MOTHER!
Let me write, and bewail my miserable hard fate, though I have no hope
how what I write can be conveyed to your hands!--I have now nothing to
do, but write and weep, and fear and pray! But yet what can I hope for,
when I seem to be devoted, as a victim to the will of a wicked violator
of all the laws of God and man!--But, gracious Heaven, forgive me my
rashness and despondency! O let me not sin against thee; for thou best
knowest what is fittest for thy poor handmaid!--And as thou sufferest not
thy poor creatures to be tempted above what they can bear, I will resign
myself to thy good pleasure: And still, I hope, desperate as my condition
seems, that as these trials are not of my own seeking, nor the effects of
my presumption and vanity, I shall be enabled to overcome them, and, in
God's own good time, be delivered from them.
Thus do I pray imperfectly, as I am forced by my distracting fears and
apprehensions; and O join with me, my dear parents!--But, alas! how can
you know, how can I reveal to you, the dreadful situation of your poor
daughter! The unhappy Pamela may be undone (which God forbid, and sooner
deprive me of life!) before you can know her hard lot!
O the unparalleled wickedness, stratagems, and devices, of those who call
themselves gentlemen, yet pervert the design of Providence, in giving
them ample means to do good, to their own everlasting perdition, and the
ruin of poor oppressed innocence!
But now I will tell you what has befallen me; and yet, how shall you
receive it? Here is no honest John to carry my letters to you! And,
besides, I am watched in all my steps; and no doubt shall be, till my
hard fate may ripen his wicked projects for my ruin. I will every day,
however, write my sad state; and some way, perhaps, may be opened to send
the melancholy scribble to you. But, alas! when you know it, what will
it do but aggravate your troubles? For, O! what can the abject poor do
against the mighty rich, when they are determined to oppress?
Well, but I must proceed to write what I had hoped to tell you in a few
hours, when I believed I should receive your grateful blessings, on my
return to you from so many hardships.
I will begin with my account from the last letter I wrote you, in which I
enclosed my poor stuff of verses; and continue it at times, as I have
opportunity; though, as I said, I know not how it can reach you.
The long-hoped for Thursday morning came, when I was to set out. I had
taken my leave of my fellow-servants overnight; and a mournful leave it
was to us all: for men, as well as women servants, wept much to part with
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