Read "Clarissa Harlowe" by Samuel Richardson online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
Friday, Apr. 14 Thou hast often reproached me, Jack, with my vanity, without distinguishing the humorous turn that accompanies it; and for which, at the same time that thou robbest me of the merit of it thou admirest me highly. Envy gives thee the indistinction: Nature inspires the admiration: unknown to thyself it inspires it. But thou art too clumsy and too shortsighted a mortal, to know how to account even for the impulses by which thou thyself art moved.
Well, but this acquits thee not of my charge of vanity, Lovelace, methinks thou sayest.