Clarissa Harlowe Samuel Richardson (most important books to read TXT) 📖

sent you with far better and more agreeable hopes.

Send not my letters. Send the linen only: except you will favour me with one line, to tell me you love me still; and that you will suspend your censures till you have the whole before you. I am the readier to send thus early, because if you have deposited anything for me, you may cause it to be taken back, or withhold anything you had but intended to send.

Adieu, my dearest friend!⁠—I beseech you to love me still⁠—But alas! what will your mother say?⁠—what will mine?⁠—what my other relations?⁠—and what my dear Mrs. Norton?⁠—and how will my brother and sister triumph!

I cannot at present tell you how, or where, you can direct to me. For very early shall I leave this place; harassed and fatigued to death. But, when I can do nothing else, constant use has made me able to write. Long, very long, has been all my amusement and pleasure: yet could not that have been such to me, had I not had you, my best beloved friend, to write to. Once more adieu. Pity and pray for

Your

Cl. Harlowe.

Letter 93 Miss Howe, to Miss Clarissa Harlowe

Tuesday, Nine o’clock

I write, because you enjoin me to do so. Love you still!⁠—How can I help it, if I would? You may believe how I stand aghast, your letter communicating the first news⁠—Good God of Heaven and Earth!⁠—But what shall I say?⁠—I am all impatient for particulars.

Lord have mercy upon me!⁠—But can it be?

My mother will indeed be astonished!⁠—How can I tell it her!⁠—It was but last night (upon some jealousies put into her head by your foolish uncle) that I assured her, and this upon the strength of your own assurances, that neither man nor devil would be able to induce you to take a step that was in the least derogatory to the most punctilious honour.

But, once more, can it be? What woman at this rate!⁠—But, God preserve you!

Let nothing escape you in your letters. Direct them for me, however, to Mrs. Knolly’s, till further notice.

Observe, my dear, that I don’t blame you by all this⁠—Your relations only are in fault!⁠—Yet how you came to change your mind is the surprising thing.

How to break it to my mother, I know not. Yet if she hear it first from any other, and find I knew it before, she will believe it to be my connivance!⁠—Yet, as I hope to live, I know not how to break it to her.

But this is teasing you.⁠—I am sure, without intention.

Let me now repeat my former advice⁠—If you are not married by this time, be sure delay not the ceremony. Since things are as they are, I wish it were thought that you were privately married before you went away. If these men plead authority to our pain, when we are theirs⁠—Why should we not, in such a case as this, make some good out of the hated word, for our reputation, when we are induced to violate a more natural one?

Your brother and sister (that vexes me almost as much as anything!) have now their ends. Now, I suppose, will go forward alterations of wills, and suchlike spiteful doings.

Miss Lloyd and Miss Biddulph this moment send up their names. They are out of breath, Kitty says, to speak to me⁠—easy to guess their errand;⁠—I must see my mother, before I see them. I have no way but to show her your letter to clear myself. I shall not be able to say a word, till she has run herself out of her first breath.⁠—Forgive me, my dear⁠—surprise makes me write thus. If your messenger did not wait, and were not those young ladies below, I could write it over again, for fear of afflicting you.

I send what you write for. If there be anything else you want that is in my power, command without reserve

Your ever affectionate

Anna Howe.

Letter 94 Miss Clarissa Harlowe, to Miss Howe

Tuesday Night

I think myself obliged to thank you, my dear Miss Howe, for your condescension, in taking notice of a creature who has occasioned you so much scandal.

I am grieved on this account, as much, I verily think, as for the evil itself.

Tell me⁠—but yet I am afraid to know⁠—what your mother said.

I long, and yet I dread, to be told, what the young ladies my companions, now never more perhaps to be so, say of me.

They cannot, however, say worse of me than I will of myself. Self accusation shall flow in every line of my narrative where I think I am justly censurable. If anything can arise from the account I am going to give you, for extenuation of my fault (for that is all a person can hope for, who cannot excuse herself) I know I may expect it from your friendship, though not from the charity of any other: since by this time I doubt not every mouth is opened against me; and all that know Clarissa Harlowe condemn the fugitive daughter.

After I had deposited my letter to you, written down to the last hour, as I may say, I returned to the ivy summerhouse; first taking back my letter from the loose bricks: and there I endeavoured, as coolly as my situation would permit, to recollect and lay together several incidents that had passed between my aunt and me; and, comparing them with some of the contents of my cousin Dolly’s letter, I began to hope, that I needed not to be so very apprehensive as I have been of next Wednesday. And thus I argued with myself.

“Wednesday cannot possibly be the day they intend, although to intimidate me they may wish me to think it is: for the settlements are unsigned: nor have they been offered me to sign. I can choose whether I will or will not put my hand to them; hard as it