Clarissa Harlowe by Samuel Richardson

Friday, July 21 If, my dearest Sister, I did not think the state of my health very precarious, and that it was my duty to take this step, I should hardly have dared to approach you, although but with my pen, after having found your censures so dreadfully justified as they have been.

I have not the courage to write to my father himself, nor yet to my mother. And it is with trembling that I address myself to you, to beg of you to intercede for me, that my father will have the goodness to revoke that heaviest part of the very heavy curse he laid upon me, which relates to Hereafter; for, as to the Here, I haveI have indeed met with my punishment from the very wretch in whom I was supposed to place my confidence.