, such a merciless--

* This Letter appears not.

But it won't do!--I must again lay down my pen.--O Belford! Belford!
I am still, I am still most miserably absent from myself!--Shall never,
never more be what I was!

***

Saturday--Sunday--Nothing done. Incapable of any thing.

MONDAY, SEPT. 18.

Heavy, d--n--y heavy and sick at soul, by Jupiter! I must come into
their expedient. I must see what change of climate will do.

You tell these fellows, and you tell me, of repenting and reforming; but
I can do neither. He who can, must not have the extinction of a Clarissa
Harlowe to answer for.--Harlowe!--Curse upon the name!--and curse upon
myself for not changing it, as I might have done!--Yet I have no need of
urging a curse upon myself--I have it effectually.

'To say I once respected you with a preference!'*--In what stiff language
does maidenly modesty on these nice occasion express itself!--To say I
once loved you, is the English; and there is truth and ease in the
expression.--'To say I once loved you,' then let it be, 'is what I ought
to blush to own.'

* See Letter XXXVI. of this volume.

And dost thou own it, excellent creature?--and dost thou then own it?--
What music in these words from such an angel!--What would I give that my
Clarissa were in being, and could and would own that she loved me?

'But, indeed, Sir, I have been long greatly above you.' Long, my blessed
charmer!--Long, indeed, for you have been ever greatly above me, and
above your sex, and above all the world.

'That preference was not grounded on ignoble motives.'

What a wretch was I, to be so distinguished by her, and yet to be so
unworthy of her hope to reclaim me!

Then, how generous her motives! Not for her own sake merely, not
altogether for mine, did she hope to reclaim me; but equally for the sake
of innocents who might otherwise be ruined by me.

And now, why did she write this letter, and why direct it to be given me
when an event the most deplorable had taken place, but for my good, and
with a view to the safety of innocents she knew not?--And when was this
letter written? Was it not at the time, at the very time, that I had
been pursuing her, as I may say, from place to place; when her soul was
bowed down by calamity and persecution; and herself was denied all
forgiveness from relations the most implacable?

Exalted creature!--And couldst thou, at such a time, and so early, and in
such circumsta