Read "Clarissa Harlowe" by Samuel Richardson online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
Thursday, May 4 I forego every other engagement, I suspend every wish, I banish every other fear, to take up my pen, to beg of you that you will not think of being guilty of such an act of love as I can never thank you for; but must forever regret. If I must continue to write to you, I must. I know full well your impatience of control, when you have the least imagination that your generosity or friendship is likely to be wondered at.
My dearest, dearest creature, would you incur a maternal, as I have a paternal, malediction? Would not the world think there was an infection in my fault, if it were to be followed by Miss Howe? There are some points so flagrantly wrong that they will not bear to be argued upon. This is one of them. I need not give reasons against such a rashness. Heaven forbid that it should be known that you had it but once in your thought, be your motives ever so noble and generous, to follow so bad an example, the rather, as that you would, in such a case, want the extenuations that might be pleaded in my favour; and particularly that one of being surprised into the unhappy step!