Clarissa, Volume 8 | Page 7

may defy calumny itself, and
(excepting the fatal, though involuntary step of April 10) wrap myself
in my own innocence, and be easy. I thank you, Sir, nevertheless, for
your caution, mean it what it will.
As to the question required of me to answer, and which is allowed to be
too shocking either for a mother to put to a daughter, or a sister to a
sister; and which, however, you say I must answer;--O Sir!--And must I
answer?--This then be my answer:--'A little time, a much less time than
is imagined, will afford a more satisfactory answer to my whole family,
and even to my brother and sister, than I can give in words.'
Nevertheless, be pleased to let it be remembered, that I did not petition
for a restoration to favour. I could not hope for that. Nor yet to be put in
possession of any part of my own estate. Nor even for means of
necessary subsistence from the produce of that estate--but only for a
blessing; for a last blessing!
And this I will farther add, because it is true, that I have no wilful crime
to charge against myself: no free living at bed and at board, as you
phrase it!
Why, why, Sir, were not other inquiries made of me, as well as this
shocking one?--inquiries that modesty would have permitted a mother

or sister to make; and which, if I may be excused to say so, would have
been still less improper, and more charitable, to have been made by
uncles, (were the mother forbidden, or the sister not inclined, to make
them,) than those they have made.
Although my humble application has brought upon me so much severe
reproach, I repent not that I have written to my mother, (although I
cannot but wish that I had not written to my sister;) because I have
satisfied a dutiful consciousness by it, however unanswered by the
wished-for success. Nevertheless, I cannot help saying, that mine is
indeed a hard fate, that I cannot beg pardon for my capital errors
without doing it in such terms as shall be an aggravation of the offence.
But I had best leave off, lest, as my full mind, I find, is rising to my pen,
I have other pardons to beg as I multiply lines, where none at all will be
given.
God Almighty bless, preserve, and comfort my dear sorrowing and
grievously offended father and mother!--and continue in honour, favour,
and merit, my happy sister!--May God forgive my brother, and protect
him from the violence of his own temper, as well as from the destroyer
of his sister's honour!--And may you, my dear uncle, and your no less
now than ever dear brother, my second papa, as he used to bid me call
him, be blessed and happy in them, and in each other!--And, in order to
this, may you all speedily banish from your remembrance, for ever,
The unhappy CLARISSA HARLOWE!

LETTER V
MRS. NORTON, TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE MONDAY,
AUG. 14.
All your friends here, my dear young lady, now seem set upon
proposing to you to go to one of the plantations. This, I believe, is
owing to some misrepresentations of Mr. Brand; from whom they have
received a letter.

I wish, with all my heart, that you could, consistently with your own
notions of honour, yield to the pressing requests of all Mr. Lovelace's
family in his behalf. This, I think, would stop every mouth; and, in time,
reconcile every body to you. For your own friends will not believe that
he is in earnest to marry you; and the hatred between the families is
such, that they will not condescend to inform themselves better; nor
would believe him, if he were ever so solemnly to avow that he is.
I should be very glad to have in readiness, upon occasion, some brief
particulars of your sad story under your own hand. But let me tell you,
at the same time, that no misrepresentations, nor even your own
confession, shall lessen my opinion either of your piety, or of your
prudence in essential points; because I know it was always your
humble way to make light faults heavy against yourself: and well might
you, my dearest young lady, aggravate your own failings, who have
ever had so few; and those few so slight, that your ingenuousness has
turned most of them into excellencies.
Nevertheless, let me advise you, my dear Miss Clary, to
discountenance any visits, which, with the censorious, may affect your
character. As that has not hitherto suffered by your wilful default, I
hope you will not, in a desponding negligence (satisfying yourself with
a consciousness of your own innocence) permit it to suffer. Difficult
situations, you know, my dear