Read "Clarissa Harlowe" by Samuel Richardson online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
Tuesday, Aug. 1 I am most confoundedly chagrined and disappointed: for here, on Saturday, arrived a messenger from Miss Howe, with a letter to my cousins; 318 which I knew nothing of till yesterday; when Lady Sarah and Lady Betty were procured to be here, to sit in judgment upon it with the old Peer, and my two kinswomen. And never was bear so miserably baited as thy poor friend! -- And for what? -- why for the cruelty of Miss Harlowe: For have I committed any new offence? and would I not have reinstated myself in her favour upon her own terms, if I could? And is it fair to punish me for what is my misfortune, and not my fault? Such event-judging fools as I have for my relations! I am ashamed of them all.
In that of Miss Howe was enclosed one to her from Miss Harlowe,319 to be transmitted to my cousins, containing a final rejection of me; and that in very vehement and positive terms; yet she pretends that, in this rejection, she is governed more by principle than passion -- (D -- -- -d lie, as ever was told! ) and, as a proof that she is, says, that she can forgive me, and does, on this one condition, that I will never molest her more -- the whole letter so written as to make herself more admired, me more detested.