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

please, Mr. Lovelace. And now they have the insolence to congratulate me on the recovery of the best of uncles; while I am forced to seem as much delighted as they, when, would it do me good, I could sit down and cry my eyes out.

I had bespoke my mourning in imagination, after the example of a certain foreign minister, who, before the death, or even last illness of Charles II, as honest White Kennet tells us, had half exhausted Blackwell-hall of its sables⁠—an indication, as the historian would insinuate, that the monarch was to be poisoned, and the ambassador in the secret.⁠—And yet, fool that I was, I could not take the hint⁠—What the devil does a man read history for, if he cannot profit by the examples he find in it?

But thus, Jack, is an observation of the old Peer’s verified, that one misfortune seldom comes alone: and so concludes

Thy doubly mortified

Lovelace.

Letter 295 Miss Clarissa Harlowe, to Miss Howe

Wednesday Night, June 28

O My Dearest Miss Howe!

Once more have I escaped⁠—But, alas! I, my best self, have not escaped!⁠—Oh! your poor Clarissa Harlowe! you also will hate me, I fear!⁠—

Yet you won’t, when you know all!

But no more of my self! my lost self. You that can rise in a morning to be blest, and to bless; and go to rest delighted with your own reflections, and in your unbroken, unstarting slumbers, conversing with saints and angels, the former only more pure than yourself, as they have shaken off the incumbrance of body; you shall be my subject, as you have long, long, been my only pleasure. And let me, at awful distance, revere my beloved Anna Howe, and in her reflect upon what her Clarissa Harlowe once was!

Forgive, O forgive my rambling. My peace is destroyed. My intellects are touched. And what flighty nonsense must you read, if you now will vouchsafe to correspond with me, as formerly!

O my best, my dearest, my only friend! what a tale have I to unfold!⁠—But still upon self, this vile, this hated self!⁠—I will shake it off, if possible; and why should I not, since I think, except one wretch, I hate nothing so much? Self, then, be banished from self one moment (for I doubt it will be for no longer) to inquire after a dearer object, my beloved Anna Howe!⁠—whose mind, all robed in spotless white, charms and irradiates⁠—But what would I say?⁠—

And how, my dearest friend, after this rhapsody, which on re-perusal, I would not let go, but to show you what a distracted mind dictates to my trembling pen! How do you? You have been very ill, it seems. That you are recovered, my dear, let me hear. That your mother is well, pray let me hear, and hear quickly. This comfort surely is owing to me; for if life is no worse than chequer-work, I must now have a little white to come, having seen nothing but black, all unchequered dismal black, for a great, great while.

And what is all this wild incoherence for? It is only to beg to know how you have been, and how you do now, by a line directed for Mrs. Rachel Clark, at Mr. Smith’s, a glove-shop, in King-street, Covent-garden; which (although my abode is secret to everybody else) will reach the hands of⁠—your unhappy⁠—but that’s not enough⁠—

Your miserable

Clarissa Harlowe.

Letter 296 Mrs. Howe, to Miss Clarissa Harlowe

[Superscribed As Directed in the Preceding]

Friday, June 30

Miss Clarissa Harlowe,

You will wonder to receive a letter from me. I am sorry for the great distress you seem to be in. Such a hopeful young lady as you were! But see what comes of disobedience to parents!

For my part; although I pity you, yet I much more pity your poor father and mother. Such education as they gave you! such improvement as you made! and such delight as they took in you!⁠—And all come to this!⁠—

But pray, Miss, don’t make my Nancy guilt of your fault; which is that of disobedience. I have charged her over and over not to correspond with one who had made such a giddy step. It is not to her reputation, I am sure. You know that I so charged her; yet you go on corresponding together, to my very great vexation; for she has been very perverse upon it more than once. Evil communication, Miss⁠—you know the rest.

Here, people cannot be unhappy by themselves, but they must invoke their friends and acquaintance whose discretion has kept them clear of their errors, into near as much unhappiness as if they had run into the like of their own heads! Thus my poor daughter is always in tears and grief. And she has postponed her own felicity, truly, because you are unhappy.

If people, who seek their own ruin, could be the only sufferers by their headstrong doings, it were something: But, O Miss, Miss! what have you to answer for, who have made as many grieved hearts as have known you! The whole sex is indeed wounded by you: For, who but Miss Clarissa Harlowe was proposed by every father and mother for a pattern for their daughters?

I write a long letter, where I proposed to say but a few words; and those to forbid your writing to my Nancy: and this as well because of the false step you have made, as because it will grieve her poor heart, and do you no good. If you love her, therefore, write not to her. Your sad letter came into my hands, Nancy being abroad: and I shall not show it her: for there would be no comfort for her, if she saw it, nor for me, whose delight she is⁠—as you once was to your parents.⁠—

But you seem to be sensible enough of your errors now.⁠—So are all giddy girls, when it is too late: and what a crestfallen figure