I was able to hold a pen, I beg the favour of you, by
this, or by any other way you think most proper, to acquaint the worthy
ladies, who have applied to you in behalf of their relation, that
although I am infinitely obliged to their generous opinion of me, yet I
cannot consent to sanctify, as I may say, Mr. Lovelace's repeated
breaches of all moral sanctions, and hazard my future happiness by a
union with a man, through whose premeditated injuries, in a long train of
the basest contrivances, I have forfeited my temporal hopes.

He himself, when he reflects upon his own actions, must surely bear
testimony to the justice as well as fitness of my determination. The
ladies, I dare say, would, were they to know the whole of my unhappy
story.

Be pleased to acquaint them that I deceive myself, if my resolution on
this head (however ungratefully and even inhumanely he has treated me) be
not owing more to principle than passion. Nor can I give a stronger
proof of the truth of this assurance, on this one easy condition, that he
will never molest me more.

In whatever way you choose to make this declaration, be pleased to let my
most respectful compliments to the ladies of that noble family, and to my
Lord M., accompany it. And do you, my dear, believe that I shall be, to
the last moment of my life,

Your ever obliged and affectionate
CLARISSA HARLOWE.

LETTER LII

MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.
FRIDAY, JULY 28.

I have three letters of thine to take notice of:* but am divided in my
mind, whether to quarrel with thee on thy unmerciful reflections, or to
thank thee for thy acceptable particularity and diligence. But several
of my sweet dears have I, indeed, in my time, made to cry and laugh
before the cry could go off the other: Why may I not, therefore, curse
and applaud thee in the same moment? So take both in one: and what
follows, as it shall rise from my pen.

* Letters XLVI. XLVII. and XLVIII. of this volume.

How often have I ingenuously confessed my sins against this excellent
creature?--Yet thou never sparest me, although as bad a man as myself.
Since then I get so little by my confessions, I had a good mind to try to
defend myself; and that not only from antient and modern story, but from
common practice; and yet avoid repeating any thing I have suggested
before in my own behalf.

I am in a humour to play the fool with my pen: briefly then, from antient
story first:--Dost thou not think