"I mean not to extenuate the faults of those unhappy women who fall victims to guilt and folly; but surely, when we reflect how many errors we are ourselves subject to, how many secret faults lie hid in the recesses of our hearts, which we should blush to have brought into open day (and yet those faults require the lenity and pity of a benevolent judge, or awful would be our prospect of futurity) I say, my dear Madam, when we consider this, we surely may pity the faults of others."
Charlotte: A Tale of Truth [Charlotte Temple]
Susanna Rowson, <u>Charlotte: A Tale of Truth</u> (London: Minerva Press, 1791). Republished in America: <u>Charlotte: A Tale of Truth</u> (Philadelphia: M. Carey, 1794). &lt;<a href="http://search.lib.virginia.edu/catalog/u826545">Link to UVA Special Collections</a>&gt; &lt;<a href="http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=RowChar.sgm&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=all">Link to UVA E-Text Center</a>&gt;<br>
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Text from U.Va. edition. Reading in <u>Charlotte Temple and Lucy Temple</u>, ed. Ann Douglas (New York: Penguin, 1991).