After what I had resolved upon, as by my former, what shall I write?
what can I? with what consciousness, even by letter, do I approach
you?--You will soon hear (if already you have not heard from the mouth
of common fame) that your Clarissa Harlowe is gone off with a man!
I am busying myself to give you the particulars at large. The whole
twenty-four hours of each day (to begin at the moment I can fix) shall
be employed in it till it is finished: every one of the hours, I mean,
that will be spared me by this interrupting man, to whom I have made
myself so foolishly accountable for too many of them. Rest is departed
from me. I have no call for that: and that has no balm for the wounds
of my mind. So you'll have all those hours without interruption till the
account is ended.
But will you receive, shall you be permitted to receive my letters,
after what I have done?
O my dearest friend!--But I must make the best of it.
I hope that will not be very bad! yet am I convinced that I did a rash
and inexcusable thing in meeting him; and all his tenderness, all his
vows, cannot pacify my inward reproaches on that account.
The bearer comes to you, my dear, for the little parcel of linen which I
sent you with far better and more agreeable hopes.
Send not my letters. Send the linen only: except you will favour me with
one line, to tell me you love me still; and that you will suspend your
censures till you have the whole before you. I am the readier to send
thus early, because if you have deposited any thing for me, you may
cause it to be taken back, or withhold any thing you had but intended to
send.
Adieu, my dearest friend!--I beseech you to love me still--But
alas! what will your mother say?--what will mine?--what my other
relations?--and what my dear Mrs. Norton?--and how will my brother and
sister triumph!
I cannot at present tell you how, or where, you can direct to me. For
very early shall I leave this place; harassed and fatigued to death.
But, when I can do nothing else, constant use has made me able to write.
Long, very long, has been all my amusement and pleasure: yet could not
that have been such to me, had I not had you, my best beloved friend, to
write to. Once more adieu. Pity and pray for
Your CL. HARLOWE.