The following History is given in a series of letters, written principally in a double yet separate correspondence; Between two young ladies of virtue and honor, bearing an inviolable friendship for e...

Jan. 10 I am extremely concerned, my dearest friend, for the disturbances that have happened in your family. I know how it must hurt you to become the subject of the public talk: and yet, upon an occa...

Harlowe-Place, Jan. 13 How you oppress me, my dearest friend, with your politeness! I cannot doubt your sincerity; but you should take care, that you give me not reason from your kind partiality to ca...

Jan. 13, 14 And thus, as Mr. Lovelace thought fit to take it, had he his answer from my sister. It was with very great regret, as he pretended, (I doubt the man is an hypocrite, my dear) that he acqui...

Jan. 15 Such, my dear, was the situation Mr. Lovelace and I were in when my brother arrived from Scotland. The moment Mr. Lovelace’s visits were mentioned to him, he, without either hesitation or apol...

Jan. 20 I have been hindered from prosecuting my intention. Neither nights nor mornings have been my own. My mother has been very ill; and would have no other nurse but me. I have not stirred from her...

Harlowe-Place, Jan. 20 I will now resume my narrative of proceedings here.⁠—My brother being in a good way, although you may be sure that his resentments are rather heightened than abated by the galli...

[After her return from her] Harlowe-Place, Feb. 20 I beg your excuse for not writing sooner. Alas! my dear, I have sad prospects before me! My brother and sister have succeeded in all their views. The...

Feb. 24 They drive on here at a furious rate. The man lives here, I think. He courts them, and is more and more a favourite. Such terms, such settlements! That’s the cry. O my dear, that I had not rea...

Feb. 26, in the Morning My aunt, who stayed here last night, made me a visit this morning as soon as it was light. She tells me, that I was left alone with my father yesterday on purpose that he might...

Feb. 27 What odd heads some people have!⁠—Miss Clarissa Harlowe to be sacrificed in marriage to Mr. Roger Solmes!⁠—Astonishing! I must not, you say, give my advice in favour of this man!⁠—You now conv...

Wednesday, March 1 You both nettled and alarmed me, my dearest Miss Howe, by the concluding part of your last. At first reading it, I did not think it necessary, said I to myself, to guard against a c...

Thursday Morning, March 2 Indeed you would not be in love with him for the world!⁠—Your servant, my dear. Nor would I have you. For, I think, with all the advantages of person, fortune, and family, he...

Wednesday, March 1 I now take up my pen to lay before you the inducements and motive which my friends have to espouse so earnestly the address of this Mr. Solmes. In order to set this matter in a clea...

Thursday Evening, March 2 On Hannah’s depositing my long letter, (begun yesterday, but by reason of several interruptions not finished till within this hour), she found and brought me yours of this da...

Friday, March 3 I have both your letters at once. It is very unhappy, my dear, since your friends will have you marry, that a person of your merit should be addressed by a succession of worthless crea...

[Her preceding not at that time received] Friday, March 3 O my dear friend, I have had a sad conflict! Trial upon trial; conference upon conference!⁠—But what law, what ceremony, can give a man a righ...

My mother, on her return, which was as soon as she had dined, was pleased to inform me, that she told my father, on his questioning her about my cheerul compliance (for, it seems, the cheerful was all...

Sat. Mar. 4 Would you not have thought something might have been obtained in my favour, from an offer so reasonable, from an expedient so proper, as I imagine, to put a tolerable end, as from myself, ...

[In answer to Letter 15] Sat. March 4, 12 o’clock Hannah has just now brought me from the usual place your favour of yesterday. The contents of it have made me very thoughtful; and you will have an an...

Sat. Afternoon The expected conference is over: but my difficulties are increased. This, as my mother was pleased to tell me, being the last persuasory effort that is to be attempted, I will be partic...

Sat. Night I have been down. I am to be unlucky in all I do, I think, be my intentions ever so good. I have made matters worse instead of better: as I shall now tell you. I found my mother and sister ...

Sunday Morning, March 5 Hannah has just brought me from the private place in the garden-wall, a letter from Mr. Lovelace, deposited last night, signed also by Lord M. He tells me in it, “That Mr. Solm...

Monday Morning, March 6 They are resolved to break my heart. My poor Hannah is discharged⁠—disgracefully discharged!⁠—Thus it was. Within half an hour after I had sent the poor girl down for my breakf...

Monday, Near 12 o’clock The enclosed letter was just now delivered to me. My brother has carried all his points. I send you also the copy of my answer. No more at this time can I write⁠—! Monday, Mar....

Tuesday, March 7 By my last deposit, you will see how I am driven, and what a poor prisoner I am.⁠—No regard had to my reputation. The whole matter is now before you. Can such measures be supposed to ...

Thursday Morn., March 9 I have another letter from Mr. Lovelace, although I had not answered his former. This man, somehow or other, knows everything that passes in our family. My confinement; Hanna’s...

Thursday Night, March 9 I have not patience with any of the people you are with. I know not what to advise you to do. How do you know that you are not punishable for being the cause, though to your ow...

Friday, March 10 You will permit me, my dear, to touch upon a few passages in your last letter, that affect me sensibly. In the first place, you must allow me to say, low as I am in spirits, that I am...

Saturday, March 11 I have had such taunting messages, and such repeated avowals of ill offices, brought me from my brother and sister, if I do not comply with their wills, (delivered, too, with provok...

Sunday Night, March 12 This man, this Lovelace, gives me great uneasiness. He is extremely bold and rash. He was this afternoon at our church⁠—in hopes to see me, I suppose: and yet, if he had such ho...

Monday, March 13 In vain dost thou19 and thy compeers press me to go to town, while I am in such an uncertainty as I am in at present with this proud beauty. All the ground I have hitherto gained with...

Tuesday, March 14 I now send you copies of my letters to my uncles: with their answers. Be pleased to return the latter by the first deposit. I leave them for you to make remarks upon. I shall make no...

Thursday, March 16 Having met with such bad success in my application to my relations, I have taken a step that will surprise you. It is no other than writing a letter to Mr. Solmes himself. I sent it...

Friday, March 17 I receive, with great pleasure, the early and cheerful assurances of your loyalty and love. And let our principal and most trusty friends named in my last know that I do. I would have...

I have found out by my watchful spy almost as many of my charmer’s motions, as those of the rest of her relations. It delights me to think how the rascal is caressed by the uncles and nephew; and let ...

Saturday, March 18 I have been frighted out of my wits⁠—still am in a manner out of breath⁠—thus occasioned⁠—I went down, under the usual pretence, in hopes to find something from you. Concerned at my...

Sunday, March 19 I beg your pardon, my dearest friend, for having given you occasion to remind me of the date of my last. I was willing to have before me as much of the workings of your wise relations...

Monday, March 20 Your last so sensibly affects me, that I must postpone every other consideration, however weighty, to reply to it: and this I will do very distinctly, and with all the openness of hea...

Monday, March 12 This letter will account to you, my dear, for my abrupt breaking off in the answer I was writing to yours of yesterday; and which, possibly, I shall not be able to finish and send you...

[In continuation of the subject in Letter 38] I will now, though midnight (for I have no sleep in my eyes) resume the subject I was forced so abruptly to quit, and will obey yours, Miss Lloyd’s, Miss ...

Tuesday, March 21 How willingly would my dear mother show kindness to me, were she permitted! None of this persecution should I labour under, I am sure, if that regard were paid to her prudence and fi...

An angry dialogue, a scolding-bout rather, has passed between my sister and me. Did you think I could scold, my dear? She was sent up to me, upon my refusal to see Mr. Solmes⁠—let loose upon me, I thi...

Tuesday, March 21 Would you not have thought, my dear Miss Howe, as well as I, that my proposal must have been accepted: and that my brother, by the last article of his unbrotherly letter (where he th...

Wenesday Morning, Nine o’clock My aunt Hervey lay here last night, and is but just gone from me. She came up to me with my sister. They would not trust my aunt without this ill-natured witness. When s...

My heart fluttered with the hope and the fear of seeing my mother, and with the shame and grief of having given her so much uneasiness. But it needed not: she was not permitted to come. But my aunt wa...

Wednesday Night, March 22 Angry!⁠—What should I be angry for? I am mightily pleased with your freedom, as you call it. I only wonder at your patience with me; that’s all. I am sorry I gave you the tro...

Tuesday Morn. 7 o’clock My mother and cousin are already gone off in our chariot and four, attended by their doughty ’squire on horseback, and he by two of his own servants, and one of my mother’s. Th...

Thursday Morn. 10 o’clock (Mar. 23) I will postpone, or perhaps pass by, several observations which I had to make on other parts of your letters; to acquaint you, that Mr. Hickman, when in London, fou...

Thursday Afternoon, March 23 An unexpected visitor has turned the course of my thoughts, and changed the subject I had intended to pursue. The only one for whom I would have dispensed with my resoluti...

Wedn. Night, March 22 On the report made by my aunt and sister of my obstinacy, my assembled relations have taken an unanimous resolution (as Betty tells me it is) against me. This resolution you will...

Thursday Morning, March 23 My letter has set them all in tumults: for, it seems, none of them went home last night; and they all were desired to be present to give their advice, if I should refuse com...

Thursday Night, March 23 I send you the boasted confutation-letter, just now put into my hands. My brother and sister, my uncle Antony and Mr. Solmes, are, I understand, exulting over the copy of it b...

Friday Morning, Six o’clock Mrs. Betty tells me, there is now nothing talked of but of my going to my uncle Antony’s. She has been ordered, she says, to get ready to attend me thither: and, upon my ex...

Friday Night, March 24 I have a most provoking letter from my sister. I might have supposed she would resent the contempt she brought upon herself in my chamber. Her conduct surely can only be account...

Friday Midnight I have now a calmer moment. Envy, ambition, high and selfish resentment, and all the violent passions, are now, most probably, asleep all around me; and shall now my own angry ones giv...

Saturday, March 25 What can I advise you to do, my noble creature? Your merit is your crime. You can no more change your nature, than your persecutors can theirs. Your distress is owing to the vast di...

Sunday Morning, March 26 How soothing a thing is praise from those we love!⁠—Whether conscious or not of deserving it, it cannot but give us great delight, to see ourselves stand high in the opinion o...

Sat. March 25 I follow my last of this date by command. I mentioned in my former my mother’s opinion of the merit you would have, if you could oblige your friends against your own inclination. Our con...

Sunday Afternoon I am in great apprehension. Yet cannot help repeating my humble thanks to your mother and you for your last favour. I hope her kind end is answered by the contents of my last. Yet I m...

Monday Morning, March 27 This morning early my uncle Harlowe came hither. He sent up the enclosed very tender letter. It has made me wish I could oblige him. You will see how Mr. Solmes’s ill qualitie...

Monday Afternoon, March 27 I have deposited my narrative down to this day noon; but I hope soon to follow it with another letter, that I may keep you as little a while as possible in that suspense whi...

Tuesday Morning, 7 o’clock My uncle has vouchsafed to answer me. These that follow are the contents of his letter; but just now brought me, although written last night⁠—late I suppose. Monday Night. M...

Thursday, Three o’clock, March 28 I have mentioned several times the pertness of Mrs. Betty to me; and now, having a little time upon my hands, I will give you a short dialogue that passed just now be...

Wednesday Morning, Nine o’clock I am just returned from my morning walk, and already have received a letter from Mr. Lovelace in answer to mine deposited last night. He must have had pen, ink, and pap...

Thursday Morning, Daybreak, March 30 An accident, and not remissness, has occasioned my silence. My mother was sent for on Sunday night by her cousin Larkin, whom I mentioned in one of my former, and ...

Wednesday, March 29 Madam, It is with infinite regret that I think myself obliged, by pen and ink, to repeat my apprehension, that it is impossible for me ever to obtain a share in the affections of y...

Thursday, March 30 I cannot but say, Mr. Hickman, but you have cause to be dissatisfied⁠—to be out of humour⁠—to be displeased⁠—with Nancy⁠—but, upon my word; but indeed⁠—What shall I say?⁠—Yet this I...

Thursday Morning I will now take some notice of your last favour. But being so far behindhand with you, must be brief. In the first place, as to your reproofs, thus shall I discharge myself of that pa...

Friday, March 31 You have very kindly accounted for your silence. People in misfortune are always in doubt. They are too apt to turn even unavoidable accidents into slights and neglects; especially in...

Thursday Night, March 30 The fruits of my inquiry after your abominable wretch’s behaviour and baseness at the paltry alehouse, which he calls an inn, prepare to hear. Wrens and sparrows are not too i...

Friday, Three o’clock You incense, alarm, and terrify me, at the same time.⁠—Hasten, my dearest friend, hasten to me what further intelligence you can gather about this vilest of men. But never talk o...

Friday Noon, March 31 Justice obliges me to forward this after my last on the wings of the wind, as I may say. I really believe the man is innocent. Of this one accusation, I think he must be acquitte...

Saturday, April 1 Hasty censures do indeed subject themselves to the charge of variableness and inconsistency in judgment: and so they ought; for, if you, even you, my dear, were so loth to own a mist...

Saturday, April 2 I ought yesterday to have acknowledged the receipt of your parcel. Robin tells me, that the Joseph Leman, whom you mention as the traitor, saw him. He was in the poultry-yard, and sp...

Sunday Night, April 2 I have many new particulars to acquaint you with, that show a great change in the behaviour of my friends as I find we have. I will give these particulars to you as they offered....

I am glad my papers are safe in your hands. I will make it my endeavour to deserve your good opinion, that I may not at once disgrace your judgment, and my own heart. I have another letter from Mr. Lo...

Tuesday Morning, Six o’clock The day is come!⁠—I wish it were happily over. I have had a wretched night. Hardly a wink have I slept, ruminating upon the approaching interview. The very distance of tim...

Tuesday Evening; and Continued Through the Night Well, my dear, I am alive, and here! but how long I shall be either here, or alive, I cannot say. I have a vast deal to write; and perhaps shall have l...

Wednesday, Eleven o’clock, April 5 I must write as I have opportunity; making use of my concealed stores: for my pens and ink (all of each that they could find) are taken from me; as I shall tell you ...

Wednesday, Four o’clock in the Afternoon I am just returned from depositing the letter I so lately finished, and such of Mr. Lovelace’s letters as I had not sent you. My long letter I found remaining ...

Thursday Morning, April 9 I have your three letters. Never was there a creature more impatient on the most interesting uncertainty than I was, to know the event of the interview between you and Solmes...

Thursday, April 6 I thank you, my dearest friend, for the pains you have taken in accounting so affectionately for my papers not being taken away yesterday; and for the kind protection you would have ...

Thursday Night This alarming hurry I mentioned under my date of last night, and Betty’s saucy dark hints, come out to be owing to what I guessed they were; that is to say, to the private intimation Mr...

Friday Morning, Seven o’clock, April 7 My aunt Hervey, who is a very early riser, was walking in the garden (Betty attending her, as I saw from my window this morning) when I arose: for after such a t...

Friday, One o’clock I have a letter from Mr. Lovelace, full of transports, vows, and promises. I will send it to you enclosed. You’ll see how “he engages in it for Lady Betty’s protection, and for Mis...

Sat. Morn., Eight o’clock, April 8 Whether you will blame me or not, I cannot tell, but I have deposited a letter confirming my resolution to leave this house on Monday next, within the hour mentioned...

Sat. Afternoon By your last date of ten o’clock in your letter of this day, you could not long have deposited it before Robin took it. He rode hard, and brought it to me just as I had risen from table...

[The preceding letter not received] Saturday Afternoon Already have I an ecstatic answer, as I may call it, to my letter. “He promises compliance with my will in every article: approves of all I propo...

[In answer to Letter 87] Sunday Morning, April 9 Do not think, my beloved friend, although you have given me in yours of yesterday a severer instance of what, nevertheless, I must call your impartial ...

Sunday Morning, April 9 Nobody it seems will go to church this day. No blessing to be expected perhaps upon views so worldly, and in some so cruel. They have a mistrust that I have some device in my h...

Ivy Summerhouse, Eleven o’clock He has not yet got my letter: and while I was contriving here how to send my officious gaoleress from me, that I might have time for the intended interview, and had hit...

St. Alban’s, Tuesday Morn. Past One O My Dearest Friend! 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?⁠—Y...

Tuesday, Nine o’clock I write, because you enjoin me to do so. Love you still!⁠—How can I help it, if I would? You may believe how I stand aghast, your letter communicating the first news⁠—Good God of...

Tuesday Night I think myself obliged to thank you, my dear Miss Howe, for your condescension, in taking notice of a creature who has occasioned you so much scandal. I am grieved on this account, as mu...

Sat. April 8 Honest Joseph, At length your beloved young lady has consented to free herself from the cruel treatment she has so long borne. She is to meet me without the garden-door at about four o’cl...

Sunday Morning, April 9 Honnered Sir, I must confesse I am infinitely obliged to your Honner’s bounty. But this last command!⁠—It seems so intricket! Lord be merciful to me, how have I been led from l...

St. Alban’s, Monday Night I snatch a few moments while my beloved is retired, (as I hope, to rest), to perform my promise. No pursuit⁠—nor have I apprehensions of any; though I must make my charmer dr...

Wednesday, April 12 I will pursue my melancholy story. Being thus hurried to the chariot, it would have been to no purpose to have refused entering into it, had he not in my fright lifted me in, as he...

Tuesday, Wedn. April 11, 12 You claim my promise, that I will be as particular as possible, in all that passes between me and my goddess. Indeed, I never had a more illustrious subject to exercise my ...

Wednesday Night, April 12 I have your narrative, my dear. You are the same noble creature you ever were. Above disguise, above art, above attempting to extenuate a failing. The only family in the worl...

Thursday Afternoon, April 13 I am infinitely concerned, my ever dear and ever kind friend, that I am the sad occasion of the displeasure between your mother and you.⁠—How many persons have I made unha...

[Enclosed to Miss Howe in the preceding] St. Alban’s, Apr. 11 My Dear Sister, I have, I confess, been guilty of an action which carries with it a rash and undutiful appearance. And I should have thoug...

[Mr. Lovelace, in continuation of his last letter, (No. 99), gives an account to his friend (pretty much to the same effect with the lady’s) of all that passed between them at the inns, in the journey...

[In continuation] I obliged the dear creature highly, I could perceive, by bringing Mrs. Greme to attend her, and to suffer that good woman’s recommendation of lodgings to take place, on her refusal t...

[In continuation] Never was there such a pair of scribbling lovers as we;⁠—yet perhaps whom it so much concerns to keep from each other what each writes. She won’t have anything else to do. I would, i...

[In continuation] This is Wednesday; the day that I was to have lost my charmer forever to the hideous Solmes! With what high satisfaction and heart’s-ease can I now sit down, and triumph over my men ...

Thursday Night, April 13 I always loved writing, and my unhappy situation gives me now enough of it; and you, I fear, too much. I have had another very warm debate with Mr. Lovelace. It brought on the...

Tuesday, Apr. 13 Why, Jack, thou needest not make such a wonderment, as the girls say, if I should have taken large strides already towards reformation: for dost thou not see, that while I have been s...

[In continuation] And do I not see that I shall need nothing but patience, in order to have all power with me? For what shall we say, if all these complaints of a character wounded; these declarations...

[In continuation] But is it not the divine Clarissa (Harlowe let me not say; my soul spurns them all but her) whom I am thus by application threatening?⁠—If virtue be the true nobility, how is she enn...

[In answer to Letters 101, 107] Do not be so much concerned, my dearest friend, at the bickerings between my mother and me. We love one another dearly notwithstanding. If my mother had not me to find ...

You tell me, my dear, that my clothes and the little sum of money I left behind me, will not be sent me.⁠—But I will still hope. It is yet early days. When their passions subside, they will better con...

You may believe, my dear Miss Howe, that the circumstances of the noise and outcry within the garden-door, on Monday last, gave me no small uneasiness, to think that I was in the hands of a man, who c...

My plain-dealing with Mr. Lovelace, on seeing him again, and the free dislike I expressed to his ways, his manners, and his contrivances, as well as to his speeches, have obliged him to recollect hims...

Friday, April 14 Never did I hear of such a parcel of foolish toads as these Harlowes!⁠—Why, Belford, the lady must fall, if every hair of her head were a guardian angel, unless they were to make a vi...

Friday, Apr. 14 I will now give you the particulars of a conversation that has just passed between Mr. Lovelace and me, which I must call agreeable. It began with his telling me, that he had just rece...

Friday, Apr. 14 Thou hast often reproached me, Jack, with my vanity, without distinguishing the humorous turn that accompanies it; and for which, at the same time that thou robbest me of the merit of ...

[In continuation] But is it not a confounded thing that I cannot fasten an obligation upon this proud beauty? I have two motives in endeavouring to prevail upon her to accept of money and raiment from...

Saturday, April 15 Though pretty much pressed in time, and oppressed by my mother’s watchfulness, I will write a few lines upon the new light that has broken in upon your gentleman; and send it by a p...

Sat. Afternoon I detain your messenger while I write an answer to yours; the poor old man not being very well. You dishearten me a good deal about Mr. Lovelace. I may be too willing from my sad circum...

Saturday Evening Mr. Lovelace has seen divers apartments at Windsor; but not one, he says, that he thought fit for me, and which, at the same time, answered my description. He has been very solicitous...

Sunday Night, April 16 I may send to you, although you are forbid to write to me; may I not?⁠—For that is not a correspondence (is it?) where letters are not answered. I am strangely at a loss what to...

You may believe, my dear, that these letters put me in good humour with him. He saw it in my countenance, and congratulated himself upon it. Yet I cannot but repeat my wonder, that I could not have th...

[In continuation] As this subject was introduced by himself, and treated so lightly by him, I was going on to tell him more of my mind; but he interrupted me⁠—Dear, dear Madam, spare me. I am sorry th...

[In continuation] Mr. Lovelace told me, that on the supposition that his proposal in relation to my cousin Morden might not be accepted, he had been studying to find out, if possible, some other exped...

[In continuation] Monday Morning, April 17 Late as I went to bed, I have had very little rest. Sleep and I have quarreled; and although I court it, it will not be friends. I hope its fellow-irreconcil...

Sat., Sunday, Monday [He gives, in several letters, the substance of what is contained in the last seven of the Lady’s. He tells his friend, that calling at The Lawn, in his way to M. Hall, (for he ow...

[In answer to Letters 120⁠–⁠126 inclusive] Tuesday, April 18 You have a most implacable family. Another visit from your uncle Antony has not only confirmed my mother an enemy to our correspondence, bu...

Wedn. Morning, April 19 I am glad, my dear friend, that you approve of my removal to London. The disagreement between your mother and you gives me inexpressible affliction. I hope I think you both mor...

Thursday, April 20 Mr. Lovelace’s servant is already returned with an answer from his friend Mr. Doleman, who has taken pains in his inquiries, and is very particular. Mr. Lovelace brought me the lett...

Thursday, April 20 [He begins with communicating to him the letter he wrote to Mr. Doleman, to procure suitable lodgings in town, and which he sent away by the Lady’s approbation: and then gives him a...

Wednesday, April 19 I have a piece of intelligence to give you, which concerns you much to know. Your brother having been assured that you are not married, has taken a resolution to find you out, wayl...

Tuesday, April 20 I should think myself utterly unworthy of your friendship did not my own concerns, heavy as they are, so engross me, that I could not find leisure for a few lines to declare to my be...

[In continuation] But this subject must not be pursued. Another might, with more pleasure, (though not with more approbation), upon one of your lively excursions. It is upon the high airs you give you...

[In continuation] And now, my dear, a few words, as to the prohibition laid upon you; a subject that I have frequently touched upon, but cursorily, because I was afraid to trust myself with it, knowin...

Friday Morning, April 21 My mother will not comply with your condition, my dear. I hinted it to her, as from myself. But the Harlowes (excuse me) have got her entirely in with them. It is a scheme of ...

Friday, April 22 Mr. Lovelace communicated to me this morning early, from his intelligencer, the news of my brother’s scheme. I like him the better for making very light of it, and for his treating it...

Friday, April 21 [As it was not probable that the Lady could give so particular an account of her own confusion, in the affecting scene she mentions on Mr. Lovelace’s offering himself to her acceptanc...

Sat. April 15 May It Please Your Honner, This is to let you Honner kno’, as how I have been emploied in a bisness I would have been excused from, if so be I could, for it is to gitt evidense from a yo...

Monday, April 17 Honest Joseph, You have a worse opinion of your invention than you ought to have. I must praise it again. Of a plain man’s head, I have not known many better than yours. How often hav...

[Enclosed in her last to Miss Howe] Thursday, April 20 Honoured Madam, Having not had the favour of an answer to a letter I took the liberty to write to you on the 14th, I am in some hopes that it may...

Saturday, April 22 I cannot for my life account for your wretch’s teasing ways; but he certainly doubts your love of him. In this he is a modest man, as well as somebody else; and tacitly confesses th...

Friday, April 21 Thou, Lovelace, hast been long the entertainer; I the entertained. Nor have I been solicitous to animadvert, as thou wentest along, upon thy inventions, and their tendency. For I beli...

[In answer to Letter 110] Dear Niece, It would be hard not to write a few lines, so much pressed to write, to one I ever loved. Your former letter I received; yet was not at liberty to answer it. I br...

[With the preceding] Sat. Morn. April 22 I have just now received the enclosed from my aunt Hervey. Be pleased, my dear, to keep her secret of having written to the unhappy wretch her niece. I may go ...

Saturday Afternoon, April 22 O my best, my only friend! Now indeed is my heart broken! It has received a blow it never will recover. Think not of corresponding with a wretch who now seems absolutely d...

To be left at Mr. Osgood’s, near Soho-Square Friday, April 21 It was expected you would send again to me, or to my aunt Hervey. The enclosed has lain ready for you, therefore, by direction. You will h...

Tuesday, April 25 Be comforted; be not dejected; do not despond, my dearest and best-beloved friend. God Almighty is just and gracious, and gives not his assent to rash and inhuman curses. Can you thi...

Wednesday Morning, April 26 Your letter, my beloved Miss Howe, gives me great comfort. How sweetly do I experience the truth of the wise man’s observation, That a faithful friend is the medicine of li...

Thursday, April 27 I am sorry you sent back my Norris. But you must be allowed to do as you please. So must I, in my turn. We must neither of us, perhaps, expect absolutely of the other what is the ri...

[Enclosed in the above] Thursday, April 27 I have been making inquiry, as I told you I would, whether your relations had really (before you left them) resolved upon that change of measures which your ...

Monday, April 24 Fate is weaving a whimsical web for thy friend; and I see not but I shall be inevitably manacled. Here have I been at work, dig, dig, dig, like a cunning miner, at one time, and sprea...

Tuesday, April 25 All hands at work in preparation for London.⁠—What makes my heart beat so strong? Why rises it to my throat in such half-choking flutters, when I think of what this removal may do fo...

Wedn. April 26 At last my lucky star has directed us into the desired port, and we are safely landed.⁠—Well says Rowe:⁠— The wise and active conquer difficulties, By daring to attempt them. Sloth and ...

Wednesday Afternoon, April 26 At length, my dearest Miss Howe, I am in London, and in my new lodgings. They are neatly furnished, and the situation, for the town, is pleasant. But I think you must not...

[With her two last letters, No. 150, 151, enclosed] Thursday Night, April 27 I have yours; just brought me. Mr. Hickman has helped me to a lucky expedient, which, with the assistance of the post, will...

Thursday Morning, Eight o’clock I am more and more displeased with Mr. Lovelace, on reflection, for his boldness in hoping to make me, though but passively, as I may say, testify to his great untruth....

Friday, April 28 Mr. Lovelace is returned already. My brother’s projects were his pretence. I could not but look upon this short absence as an evasion of his promise; especially as he had taken such p...

Sunday Have been at church, Jack⁠—behaved admirably well too! My charmer is pleased with me now: for I was exceedingly attentive to the discourse, and very ready in the auditor’s part of the service.⁠...

Sunday, April 30 [Mr. Lovelace, in his last letters, having taken notice of the most material passages contained in this letter, the following extracts from it are only inserted. She gives pretty near...

Monday Night, May 1 I have just escaped from a very disagreeable company I was obliged, so much against my will, to be in. As a very particular relation of this evening’s conversation would be painful...

Monday Midnight I am very much vexed and disturbed at an odd incident. Mrs. Sinclair has just now left me; I believe in displeasure, on my declining to comply with a request she made me: which was, to...

Tuesday, May 2 With infinite regret I am obliged to tell you, that I can no longer write to you, or receive letters from you.⁠—Your mother has sent me a letter enclosed in a cover to Mr. Lovelace, dir...

Wedn. May 3 I am astonished that my mother should take such a step⁠—purely to exercise an unreasonable act of authority; and to oblige the most remorseless hearts in the world. If I find that I can be...

Thursday, May 4 I forego every other engagement, I suspend every wish, I banish every other fear, to take up my pen, to beg of you that you will not think of being guilty of such an act of love as I c...

[Sent to Wilson’s by a particular hand] Friday, May 5 Madam, I have the honour of dear Miss Howe’s commands to acquaint you, without knowing the occasion, “That she is excessively concerned for the co...

Tuesday, May 2 Mercury, as the fabulist tells us, having the curiosity to know the estimation he stood in among mortals, descended in disguise, and in a statuary’s shop cheapened a Jupiter, then a Jun...

Tuesday, May 2 Just as I had sealed up the enclosed, comes a letter to my beloved, in a cover to me, directed to Lord M.’s. From whom, thinkest thou?⁠—From Mrs. Howe! And what the contents? How should...

Edgware, Tuesday Night, May 2 Without staying for the promised letter from you to inform us what the lady says of us, I write to tell you, that we are all of one opinion with regard to her; which is, ...

Wednesday, May 3 When I have already taken pains to acquaint thee in full with regard to my views, designs, and resolutions, with regard to this admirable woman, it is very extraordinary that thou sho...

[In continuation] Well sayest thou, that mine is the most plotting heart in the world. Thou dost me honour; and I thank thee heartily. Thou art no bad judge. How like Boileau’s parson I strut behind m...

Edgeware, Thursday, May 4 I know that thou art so abandoned a man, that to give thee the best reasons in the world against what thou hast once resolved upon will be but acting the madman whom once we ...

I thank you and Mr. Hickman for his letter, sent me with such kind expedition; and proceed to obey my dear menacing tyranness. [She then gives the particulars of what passed between herself and Mr. Lo...

Sunday Night, May 7 When you reflect upon my unhappy situation, which is attended with so many indelicate and even shocking circumstances, some of which my pride will not let me think of with patience...

Tuesday, May 9 I am a very unhappy man. This lady is said to be one of the sweetest-tempered creatures in the world: and so I thought her. But to me she is one of the most perverse. I never was suppos...

Tuesday, May 9 If, my dear, you approve of the application to my uncle Harlowe, I wish it to be made as soon as possible. We are quite out again. I have shut myself up from him. The offence indeed not...

Wednesday, May 10 I will write! No man shall write for me.134 No woman shall hinder me from writing. Surely I am of age to distinguish between reason and caprice. I am not writing to a man, am I?⁠—If ...

Friday, May 12 I must be silent, my exalted friend, under praises that oppress my heart with a consciousness of not deserving them; at the same time that the generous design of those praises raises an...

Thursday, May 11 Good Mrs. Norton, Cannot you, without naming me as an adviser, who am hated by the family, contrive a way to let Mrs. Harlowe know, that in an accidental conversation with me, you had...

Saturday, May 13 Dear Madam, My heart is almost broken, to be obliged to let you know, that such is the situation of things in the family of my ever-dear Miss Harlowe, that there can be at present no ...

Saturday Evening, May 13 Dear, Good Woman, Your beloved’s honour is inviolate!⁠—Must be inviolate! and will be so, in spite of men and devils. Could I have had hope of a reconciliation, all my view wa...

[Not communicated till the letters came to be collected] Saturday, May 13 I return an answer in writing, as I promised, to your communication. But take no notice either to my Bella’s Betty, (who I und...

Sunday, May 14 How it is now, my dear, between you and Mr. Lovelace, I cannot tell. But, wicked as the man is, I am afraid he must be your lord and master. I called him by several very hard names in m...

Monday Afternoon, May 15 Now indeed it is evident, my best, my only friend, that I have but one choice to make. And now I do find that I have carried my resentment against this man too far; since now ...

Tuesday, May 16 I think once more we seem to be in a kind of train; but through a storm. I will give you the particulars. I heard him in the dining-room at five in the morning. I had rested very ill, ...

Tuesday Night, May 16 Mr. Lovelace has sent me, by Dorcas, his proposals, as follow: “To spare a delicacy so extreme, and to obey you, I write: and the rather that you may communicate this paper to Mi...

Wednesday Morning, May 17 Mr. Lovelace would fain have engaged me last night. But as I was not prepared to enter upon the subject of his proposals, (intending to consider them maturely), and was not h...

Thursday, May 18 I have neither time nor patience, my dear friend, to answer every material article in your last letters just now received. Mr. Lovelace’s proposals are all I like of him. And yet (as ...

Wednesday, May 17 I cannot conceal from you anything that relates to yourself so much as the enclosed does. You will see what the noble writer apprehends from you, and wishes of you, with regard to Mi...

[Enclosed in the preceding] M. Hall, Monday, May 15 Sir, If any man in the world has power over my nephew, it is you. I therefore write this, to beg you to interfere in the affair depending between hi...

Friday Night, May 19 When I have opened my view to thee so amply as I have done in my former letters; and have told thee, that my principal design is but to bring virtue to a trial, that, if virtue, i...

Saturday, May 20 Not one word will I reply to such an abandoned wretch, as thou hast shown thyself to be in thine of last night. I will leave the lady to the protection of that Power who only can work...

Saturday, May 20 I am pleased with the sober reflection with which thou concludest thy last; and I thank thee for it. Poor Belton!⁠—I did not think his Thomasine would have proved so very a devil. But...

And now will I favour thee with a brief account of our present situation. From the highest to the lowest we are all extremely happy.⁠—Dorcas stands well in her lady’s graces. Polly has asked her advic...

Friday, May 19 I would not, if I could help it, be so continually brooding over the dark and gloomy face of my condition (all nature, you know, my dear, and everything in it, has a bright and a gloomy...

Saturday, May 20 I did not know, my dear, that you deferred giving an answer to Mr. Lovelace’s proposals till you had my opinion of them. A particular hand, occasionally going to town, will leave this...

Sat. Sunday, May 20, 21 Now, my dear, for the promised subject. You must not ask me how I came by the originals (such they really are) that I am going to present you with: for my mother would not read...

Sunday, May 21 I am too much disturbed in my mind to think of anything but revenge; or I did intend to give thee an account of Miss Harlowe’s observations on the play. Miss Harlowe’s I say. Thou knowe...

The next letter is of such a nature, that, I dare say, these proud rouges would not have had it fall into my hands for the world.153 I see by it to what her displeasure with me, in relation to my prop...

Sunday Morning, Seven o’clock I was at the play last night with Mr. Lovelace and Miss Horton. It is, you know, a deep and most affecting tragedy in the reading. You have my remarks upon it, in the lit...

Monday Morning, May 22 No generosity in this lady. None at all. Wouldst thou not have thought, that after I had permitted her to withdraw, primed for mischief as I was, she would meet me next morning ...

Tuesday Morning, May 23 The dear creature desires to be excused seeing me till evening. She is not very well, as Dorcas tells me. Read here, if thou wilt, the paper transcribed by Dorcas. It is imposs...

Tuesday, May 23 Well did I, and but just in time to conclude to have done with Mrs. Fretchville and the house: for here Mennell has declared, that he cannot in conscience and honour go any farther.⁠—H...

Wednesday, May 24 [He gives his friend an account of their interview that morning; and of the happy effects of his cousin Montague’s letter in his favour. Her reserves, however, he tells him, are not ...

May 24 The devil take this uncle of mine! He has at last sent me a letter which I cannot show, without exposing the head of our family for a fool. A confounded parcel of popguns has he let off upon me...

Tuesday, May 23 It is a long lane that has no turning.⁠—Do not despise me for my proverbs⁠—you know I was always fond of them; and if you had been so too, it would have been the better for you, let me...

Thursday, May 25 Thou seest, Belford, how we now drive before the wind.⁠—The dear creature now comes almost at the first word, whenever I desire the honour of her company. I told her last night, that ...

And now, that my beloved seems secure in my net, for my project upon the vixen Miss Howe, and upon her mother: in which the officious prancer Hickman is to come in for a dash. But why upon her mother,...

If, Belford, thou likest not my plot upon Miss Howe, I have three or four more as good in my own opinion; better, perhaps, they will be in thine: and so ’tis but getting loose from thy present engagem...

Friday Evening Just returned from an airing with my charmer, complied with after great importunity. She was attended by the two nymphs. They both topped their parts; kept their eyes within bounds; mad...

Cocoa-Tree, Saturday, May 27 This ipecacuanha is a most disagreeable medicine. That these cursed physical folks can find out nothing to do us good, but what would poison the devil! In the other world,...

Saturday, May 27 Mr. Lovelace, my dear, has been very ill. Suddenly taken. With a vomiting of blood in great quantities. Some vessel broken. He complained of a disorder in his stomach overnight. I was...

Sat. Evening I had a charming airing. No return of my malady. My heart was perfectly easy, how could my stomach be otherwise? But when I came home, I found that my sweet soul had been alarmed by a new...

Sunday, May 28 This story of Captain Tomlinson employed us not only for the time we were together last night, but all the while we sat at breakfast this morning. She would still have it that it was th...

Sunday Night This Captain Tomlinson is one of the happiest as well as one of the best men in the world. What would I give to stand as high in my beloved’s opinion as he does! but yet I am as good a ma...

Monday, May 29 Now have I established myself forever in my charmer’s heart. The Captain came at seven, as promised, and ready equipped for his journey. My beloved chose not to give us her company till...

And now it is time to confess (and yet I know that thy conjectures are aforehand with my exposition) that this Captain Tomlinson, who is so great a favourite with my charmer, and who takes so much del...

Tuesday, May 30 I have a letter from Lord M. Such a one as I would wish for, if I intended matrimony. But as matters are circumstanced, I cannot think of showing it to my beloved. My Lord regrets, “th...

Friday, June 2 Notwithstanding my studied-for politeness and complaisance for some days past; and though I have wanted courage to throw the mask quite aside; yet I have made the dear creature more tha...

Monday, June 5 I am now almost in despair of succeeding with this charming frost-piece by love or gentleness.⁠—A copy of the draughts, as I told thee, has been sent to Captain Tomlinson; and that by a...

Monday Afternoon A letter received from the worthy Captain Tomlinson has introduced me into the presence of my charmer sooner than perhaps I should otherwise have been admitted. Sullen her brow, at he...

Tuesday, June 6 Unsuccessful as hitherto my application to you has been, I cannot for the heart of me forbear writing once more in behalf of this admirable woman: and yet am unable to account for the ...

Tuesday Afternoon, June 6 Difficulties still to be got over in procuring this plaguey license. I ever hated, and ever shall hate, these spiritual lawyers, and their court. And now, Jack, if I have not...

Wednesday Night, Eleven o’clock Faith, Jack, thou hadst half undone me with thy nonsense, though I would not own it on my yesterday’s letter: my conscience of thy party before.⁠—But I think I am my ow...

Thursday Morning, Five o’clock, (June 8). Now is my reformation secure; for I never shall love any other woman! Oh! she is all variety! She must ever be new to me! Imagination cannot form; much less c...

Thursday Morning, Eight o’clock Her chamber-door has not yet been opened. I must not expect she will breakfast with me. Nor dine with me, I doubt. A little silly soul, what troubles does she make to h...

King’s Arms, Pall-Mall, Thursday, Two o’clock Several billets passed between us before I went out, by the internuncioship of Dorcas: for which reason mine are superscribed by her married name.⁠—She wo...

Thursday Evening, June 8 O for a curse to kill with!⁠—Ruined! Undone! Outwitted! Tricked!⁠—Zounds, man, the lady has gone off!⁠—Absolutely gone off! Escaped!⁠— Thou knowest not, nor canst conceive, th...

A letter is put into my hands by Wilson himself.⁠—Such a letter! A letter from Miss Howe to her cruel friend!⁠— I made no scruple to open it. It is a miracle that I fell not into fits at the reading o...

Thursday Evening, June 8 After my last, so full of other hopes, the contents of this will surprise you. O my dearest friend, the man has at last proved himself to be a villain! It was with the utmost ...

Friday Morning, Past Two o’clock Io Triumphe!⁠—Io Clarissa, sing!⁠—Once more, what a happy man thy friend!⁠—A silly dear novice, to be heard to tell the coachman where to carry her!⁠—And to go to Hamp...

Upper-Flask, Hampstead. Fri. Morn. 7 o’clock. (June 9). I am now here, and here have been this hour and half.⁠—What an industrious spirit have I!⁠—Nobody can say that I eat the bread of idleness. I ta...

Hampstead, Friday Night, June 9 Now, Belford, for the narrative of narratives. I will continue it as I have opportunity; and that so dexterously, that, if I break off twenty times, thou shalt not disc...

I thought it was now high time to turn my whole mind to my beloved; who had had full leisure to weigh the contents of the letters I had left with her. I therefore requested Mrs. Moore to step in, and ...

I will now give thee the substance of the dialogue that passed between the two women and the lady. Wonder not, that a perverse wife makes a listening husband. The event, however, as thou wilt find, ju...

[In continuation] We had at dinner, besides Miss Rawlins, a young widow-niece of Mrs. Moore, who is come to stay a month with her aunt⁠—Bevis her name; very forward, very lively, and a great admirer o...

[In continuation] We had hardly dined, when my coachman, who kept a lookout for Captain Tomlinson, as Will did for old Grimes, conducted hither that worthy gentleman, attended by one servant, both on ...

[In continuation] It was now high time to acquaint my spouse, that Captain Tomlinson was come. And the rather, as the maid told us, that the lady had asked her if such a gentleman (describing him) was...

[In continuation] I went up to my new-taken apartment, and fell to writing in character, as usual. I thought I had made good my quarters, but the cruel creature, understanding that I intended to take ...

Saturday, Six o’clock, June 10 The lady gave Will’s sweetheart a letter last night to be carried to the post-house, as this morning, directed for Miss Howe, under cover to Hickman. I dare say neither ...

Eight o’clock, Sat. Morn. June 10 I am come back from Mrs. Moore’s, whither I went in order to attend my charmer’s commands. But no admittance⁠—a very bad night. Doubtless she must be as much concerne...

From My Apartments at Mrs. Moore’s Miss Rawlins at her brothers; Mrs. Moore engaged in household matters; widow Bevis dressing; I have nothing to do but write. This cursed Tomlinson not yet arrived!⁠—...

Sat Night, June 10 What will be the issue of all my plots and contrivances, devil take me if I am able to divine. But I will not, as Lord M. would say, forestall my own market. At four, the appointed ...

[In continuation] The lady stayed longer above than we wished; and I hoping that (ladylike) she only waited for an invitation to return to us, desired the widow Bevis, in the Captain’s name, (who want...

This debate between the Captain and me was hardly over when the three women, led by Miss Rawlins, entered, hoping no intrusion, but very desirous, the maiden said, to know if we were likely to accommo...

Sat. Midnight No rest, says a text that I once heard preached upon, to the wicked⁠—and I cannot close my eyes (yet only wanted to compound for half an hour in an elbow-chair)⁠—so must scribble on. I p...

Sunday Morn. (June 11). Four o’clock A few words to the verbal information thou sentest me last night concerning thy poor old man; and then I rise from my seat, shake myself, refresh, new-dress, and s...

Sunday Morning I have had the honour of my charmer’s company for two complete hours. We met before six in Mrs. Moore’s garden. A walk on the Heath refused me. The sedateness of her aspect and her kind...

This fair inexorable is actually gone to church with Mrs. Moore and Mrs. Bevis; but Will closely attends her motions; and I am in the way to receive any occasional intelligence from him. She did not c...

Sunday Afternoon O Belford! what a hair’s-breadth escape have I had!⁠—Such a one, that I tremble between terror and joy, at the thought of what might have happened, and did not. What a perverse girl i...

[In continuation] Thus it was⁠—My charmer accompanied Mrs. Moore again to church this afternoon. I had been in very earnest, in the first place, to obtain her company at dinner: but in vain. According...

I have begun another letter to thee, in continuation of my narrative: but I believe I shall send thee this before I shall finish that. By the enclosed thou wilt see, that neither of the correspondents...

Sunday Night⁠—Monday Morning I went down with revenge in my heart, the contents of Miss Howe’s letter almost engrossing me, the moment that Miss Harlowe and Mrs. Moore (accompanied by Miss Rawlins) ca...

Monday, June 12 Durst ever see a license, Jack? “Edmund, by divine permission, Lord Bishop of London, to our well-beloved in Christ, Robert Lovelace, (your servant, my good Lord! What have I done to m...

Well, but now my plots thicken; and my employment of writing to thee on this subject will soon come to a conclusion. For now, having got the license; and Mrs. Townsend with her tars, being to come to ...

At Mrs. Sinclair’s, Monday Afternoon All’s right, as heart can wish!⁠—In spite of all objection⁠—in spite of a reluctance next to faintings⁠—in spite of all foresight, vigilance, suspicion⁠—once more ...

Tuesday Morning, June 13 And now, Belford, I can go no farther. The affair is over. Clarissa lives. And I am Your humble servant, R. Lovelace. [The whole of this black transaction is given by the inju...

Watford, Wedn. Jan. 14 O thou savage-hearted monster! What work hast thou made in one guilty hour, for a whole age of repentance! I am inexpressibly concerned at the fate of this matchless lady! She c...

Thursday, June 15 Let me alone, you great dog, you!⁠—let me alone!⁠—have I heard a lesser boy, his coward arms held over his head and face, say to a bigger, who was pommeling him, for having run away ...

I have just now had a specimen of what the resentment of this dear creature will be when quite recovered: an affecting one!⁠—For entering her apartment after Dorcas; and endeavouring to soothe and pac...

Friday, June 16 I am sorry to hear of thy misfortune; but hope thou wilt not long lie by it. Thy servant tells me what narrow escape thou hadst with thy neck, I wish it may not be ominous: but I think...

Sunday Afternoon, Six o’clock, (June 18). I went out early this morning, and returned not till just now; when I was informed that my beloved, in my absence, had taken it into her head to attempt to ge...

Sunday Night Never blame me for giving way to have art used with this admirable creature. All the princes of the air, or beneath it, joining with me, could never have subdued her while she had her sen...

Monday Morn. Five o’clock (June 19). I must write on. Nothing else can divert me: and I think thou canst not have been a dog to me. I would fain have closed my eyes: but sleep flies me. Well says Hora...

I have this moment intelligence from Simon Parsons, one of Lord M.’s stewards, that his Lordship is very ill. Simon, who is my obsequious servant, in virtue of my presumptive heirship, gives me a hint...

Monday Afternoon Pity me, Jack, for pity’s sake; since, if thou dost not, nobody else will: and yet never was there a man of my genius and lively temper that wanted it more. We are apt to attribute to...

There is certainly a good deal in the observation, that it costs a man ten times more pains to be wicked, than it would cost him to be good. What a confounded number of contrivances have I had recours...

But with all this dear creature’s resentment against me, I cannot, for my heart, think but she will get all over, and consent to enter the pale with me. Were she even to die tomorrow, and to know she ...

Tuesday Morn. June 20 Well, Jack, now are we upon another footing together. This dear creature will not let me be good. She is now authorizing all my plots by her own example. Thou must be partial in ...

Tues. Morn. Ten o’clock Very ill⁠—exceedingly ill⁠—as Dorcas tells me, in order to avoid seeing me⁠—and yet the dear soul may be so in her mind. But is not that equivocation? Some one passion predomin...

Tired with a succession of fatiguing days and sleepless nights, and with contemplating the precarious situation I stand in with my beloved, I fell into a profound reverie; which brought on sleep; and ...

Tuesday Night, June 20 No admittance yet to my charmer! she is very ill⁠—in a violent fever, Dorcas thinks. Yet will have no advice. Dorcas tells her how much I am concerned at it. But again let me as...

Wedn. Noon, June 21 What shall I say now!⁠—I, who but a few hours ago had such faith in dreams, and had proposed out of hand to begin my treatise of dreams sleeping and dreams waking, and was pleasing...

Wednesday Afternoon Disappointed in her meditated escape; obliged, against her will, to meet me in the dining-room; and perhaps apprehensive of being upbraided for her art in feigning herself ill; I e...

Wednesday Night A man is just now arrived from M. Hall, who tells me, that my Lord is in a very dangerous way. The gout in his stomach to an extreme degree, occasioned by drinking a great quantity of ...

Thursday Noon, June 22 Let me perish if I know what to make either of myself or of this surprising creature⁠—now calm, now tempestuous.⁠—But I know thou lovest not anticipation any more than I. At my ...

Thursday Night Confoundedly out of humour with this perverse woman!⁠—Nor wilt thou blame me, if thou art my friend. She regards the concession she made, as a concession extorted from her: and we are b...

June 23, Friday Morning I went out early this morning, on a design that I know not yet whether I shall or shall not pursue; and on my return found Simon Parsons, my Lord’s Berkshire bailiff, (just bef...

Just come from the women. “Have I gone so far, and am I afraid to go farther?⁠—Have I not already, as it is evident by her behaviour, sinned beyond forgiveness?⁠—A woman’s tears used to be to me but a...

Just come from my charmer. She will not suffer me to say half the obliging, the tender things, which my honest heart is ready to overflow with. A confounded situation that, when a man finds himself in...

Friday Night, or rather Sat. Morn. One o’clock I thought I should not have had either time or inclination to write another line before I got to M. Hall. But, having the first, must find the last; sinc...

[Superscribed to Mrs. Lovelace] M. Hall, Sat. Night, June 24 My Dearest Life, If you do not impute to live, and to terror raised by love, the poor figure I made before you last night, you will not do ...

[Superscribed to Mrs. Lovelace] M. Hall, Sunday Night, June 25 My Dearest love, I cannot find words to express how much I am mortified at the return of my messenger without a line from you. Thursday i...

[Superscribed to Mrs. Lovelace] M. Hall, Monday, June 26 Once more, my dearest love, do I conjure you to send me the four requested words. There is no time to be lost. And I would not have next Thursd...

Monday, June 26 Thou wilt see the situation I am in with Miss Harlowe by the enclosed copies of three letters; to two of which I am so much scorned as not to have one word given me in answer; and of t...

London, June 27. Tuesday You must excuse me, Lovelace, from engaging in the office you would have me undertake, till I can be better assured you really intend honourably at last by this much-injured l...

M. Hall, June 27. Tuesday Night, Near 12 Yours reached me this moment, by an extraordinary push in the messengers. What a man of honour thou of a sudden!⁠— And so, in the imaginary shape of a guarante...

[Superscribed to Mrs. Lovelace] M. Hall, Wed. Morning, One o’clock, June 28 Not one line, my dearest life, not one word, in answer to three letters I have written! The time is now so short, that this ...

To Mr. Patrick McDonald, at His Lodgings, at Mr. Brown’s, Peruke-maker, in St. Martin’s Lane Westminster M. Hall, Wedn. Morning, Two o’clock Dear McDonald, The bearer of this has a letter to carry to ...

[Enclosed in the Preceding; to Be Shown to the Lady As in Confidence] M. Hall, Tuesday Morn., June 27 Dear Captain Tomlinson, An unhappy misunderstanding has arisen between the dearest lady in the wor...

Wedn. June 28, Near Twelve o’clock Honoured Sir, I received yours, as your servant desired me to acquaint you, by ten this morning. Horse and man were in a foam. I instantly equipped myself, as if com...

Wednesday, Twelve o’clock Dear Lovelace, I have plaguey news to acquaint thee with. Miss Harlowe is gone off!⁠—Quite gone, by soul!⁠—I have no time for particulars, your servant being gone off. But if...

Thursday, June 29 Thou hast heard from McDonald and Mowbray the news. Bad or good, I know not which thou’lt deem it. I only wish I could have given thee joy upon the same account, before the unhappy l...

Friday, June 30 I am ruined, undone, blown up, destroyed, and worse than annihilated, that’s certain!⁠—But was not the news shocking enough, dost thou think, without thy throwing into the too-weighty ...

Wednesday Night, June 28 O My Dearest Miss Howe! Once more have I escaped⁠—But, alas! I, my best self, have not escaped!⁠—Oh! your poor Clarissa Harlowe! you also will hate me, I fear!⁠— Yet you won’t...

[Superscribed As Directed in the Preceding] Friday, June 30 Miss Clarissa Harlowe, You will wonder to receive a letter from me. I am sorry for the great distress you seem to be in. Such a hopeful youn...

Saturday, July 1 Permit me, Madam, to trouble you with a few lines, were it only to thank you for your reproofs; which have nevertheless drawn fresh streams of blood from a bleeding heart. My story is...

Thursday, June 29 My Good Hannah, Strange things have happened to me, since you were dismissed my service (so sorely against my will) and your pert fellow servant set over me. But that must all be for...

[In answer] Monday, July 3 Honored Maddam, I have not forgot to write, and never will forget anything you, my dear young lady, was so good as to larn me. I am very sorrowful for your misfortens, my de...

Thursday, June 29 My Dear Mrs. Norton, I address myself to you, after a very long silence, (which, however, was not owing either to want of love or duty), principally to desire you to satisfy me in tw...

[In answer] Saturday, July 1 Your letter, my dearest young lady, cuts me to the heart! Why will you not let me know all your distresses?⁠—Yet you have said enough! My son is very good to me. A few hou...

Thursday, June 29 Madam, I hope you’ll excuse the freedom of this address, from one who has not the honour to be personally known to you, although you must have heard much of Clarissa Harlowe. It is o...

Saturday, July 1 Dear Madam, I find that all is not as it should be between you and my nephew Lovelace. It will very much afflict me, and all his friends, if he has been guilty of any designed basenes...

June 22 Mrs. Hodges, I am under a kind of necessity to write to you, having no one among my relations to whom I dare write, or hope a line from if I did. It is but to answer a question. It is this: Wh...

[In answer] Sat. July 2 Maddam, I return you an anser, as you wish me to doe. Master is acquented with no sitch man. I am shure no sitch ever came to our house. And master sturs very little out. He ha...

Monday, July 3 Madam, I cannot excuse myself from giving your Ladyship this one trouble more; to thank you, as I most heartily do, for your kind letter. I must own to you, Madam, that the honour of be...

Sunday Evening, July 2 How kindly, my beloved Mrs. Norton, do you soothe the anguish of a bleeding heart! Surely you are mine own mother; and, by some unaccountable mistake, I must have been laid to a...

Monday Night, July 3 O the barbarous villany of this detestable man! And is there a man in the world who could offer violence to so sweet a creature! And are you sure you are now out of his reach? You...

Thursday, July 6 I ought not, especially at this time, to add to your afflictions⁠—but yet I cannot help communicating to you (who now are my only soothing friend) a new trouble that has befallen me. ...

[Superscribed For Mrs. Rachel Clark, etc.] Wednesday, July 5 My Dear Clarissa, I have at last heard from you from a quarter I little expected. From my mother! She had for some time seen me uneasy and ...

Thursday, July 6 Few young persons have been able to give more convincing proofs than myself how little true happiness lies in the enjoyment of our own wishes. To produce one instance only of the trut...

[Referred to in Letter 257] Thursday Night He had found me out at Hampstead: strangely found me out; for I am still at a loss to know by what means. I was loth, in my billet of the 6th,272 to tell you...

[In continuation] I was very ill, and obliged to lay down my pen. I thought I should have fainted. But am better now⁠—so will proceed. The pretended ladies, the more we talked, the fonder they seemed ...

In the midst of this agreeableness, the coach came to the door. The pretended Lady Betty besought me to give them my company to their cousin Leeson’s. I desired to be excused: yet suspected nothing. S...

[In continuation] [The lady next gives an account, Of her recovery from her delirium and sleepy disorder: Of her attempt to get away in his absence: Of the conversations that followed, at his return, ...

Sunday, July 9 May Heaven signalize its vengeance, in the face of all the world, upon the most abandoned and profligate of men!⁠—And in its own time, I doubt not but it will.⁠—And we must look to a wo...

Monday, July 10 I now, my dearest friend, resume my pen, to obey my mother, in giving you her opinion upon your unhappy story. She still harps upon the old string, and will have it that all your calam...

Tuesday, July 11 Forgive you, my dear!⁠—Most cordially do I forgive you⁠—Will you forgive me for some sharp things I wrote in return to yours of the 5th? You could not have loved me as you do, nor had...

Wed. Night, July 12 I write, my dearest creature, I cannot but write, to express my concern on your dejection. Let me beseech you, my charming excellence, let me beseech you, not to give way to it. Co...

Thursday, July 13 I am extremely concerned, my dear Miss Howe, for being primarily the occasion of the apprehensions you have of this wicked man’s vindictive attempts. What a wide-spreading error is m...

Friday, July 7 I have three of thy letters at once before me to answer; in each of which thou complainest of my silence; and in one of them tellest me, that thou canst not live without I scribble to t...

Six, Saturday Morning, July 8 Have I nothing new, nothing diverting, in my whimsical way, thou askest, in one of thy three letters before me, to entertain thee with?⁠—And thou tallest me, that, when I...

Sunday Night, July 9 Now, Jack, have I a subject with a vengeance. I am in the very height of my trial for all my sins to my beloved fugitive. For here today, at about five o’clock, arrived Lady Sarah...

[In continuation] The Ladies, instead of taking up the subject where we had laid it down, must needs touch upon passage in my fair accuser’s letter, which I was in hopes they would have let rest, as w...

[In continuation] It is much better, Jack, to tell your own story, when it must be known, than to have an adversary tell it for you. Conscious of this, I gave them a particular account how urgent I ha...

Wedn. July 12 So, Jack, they think they have gained a mighty point. But, were I to change my mind, were I to repent, I fancy I am safe.⁠—And yet this very moment it rises to my mind, that ’tis hard tr...

Thursday Night, July 13 Collins sets not out tomorrow. Some domestic occasion hinders him. Rogers is but now returned from you, and cannot be well spared. Mr. Hickman is gone upon an affair of my moth...

Sunday Night, July 16 My Dearest Friend, Why should you permit a mind, so much devoted to your service, to labour under such an impatience as you must know it would labour under, for want of an answer...

Tuesday Morn. July 18 Madam, I take the liberty to write to you, by this special messenger. In the frenzy of my soul I write to you, to demand of you, and of any of your family who can tell news of my...

M. Hall, Sat. Night, June 15 All undone, undone, by Jupiter!⁠—Zounds, Jack, what shall I do now! a curse upon all my plots and contrivances!⁠—But I have it⁠—in the very heart and soul of me I have it!...

Tuesday Afternoon Dear Miss Howe, Your letter has infinitely disturbed us all. This wretched man has been half distracted ever since Saturday night. We knew not what ailed him, till your letter was br...

M. Hall, July 18 Dear Madam, In pursuance of my promise, I will minutely inform you of everything we know relating to this shocking transaction. When we returned from you on Thursday night, and made o...

Sunday Night, July 16 What a cursed piece of work hast thou made of it, with the most excellent of women! Thou mayest be in earnest, or in jest, as thou wilt; but the poor lady will not be long either...

Monday, July 17 About six this morning, I went to Rowland’s. Mrs. Sinclair was to follow me, in order to dismiss the action; but not to come in sight. Rowland, upon inquiry, told me, that the lady was...

Monday, July 17, Eleven at Night Curse upon thy hard heart, thou vile caitiff! How hast thou tortured me, by thy designed abruption! ’tis impossible that Miss Harlowe should have ever suffered as thou...

Monday Night, July 17 On my return to Rowland’s, I found that the apothecary was just gone up. Mrs. Rowland being above with him, I made the less scruple to go up too, as it was probable, that to ask ...

Tuesday Morn. July 18, Six o’clock Having sat up so late to finish and seal in readiness my letter to the above period, I am disturbed before I wished to have risen, by the arrival of thy second fello...

Tuesday, July 18. Afternoon I renewed my inquiries after the lady’s health, in the morning, by my servant: and, as soon as I had dined, I went myself. I had but a poor account of it: yet sent up my co...

Tuesday Night, July 18 I am just come from the lady. I was admitted into the dining-room, where she was sitting in an elbow-chair, in a very weak and low way. She made an effort to stand up when I ent...

Wednesday, July 19 This morning I took a chair to Smith’s; and, being told that the lady had a very bad night, but was up, I sent for her worthy apothecary; who, on his coming to me, approving of my p...

[In answer to Letter 339] M. Hall, Wed. Night, July 19 You might well apprehend that I should think you were playing me booty in communicating my letter to the lady. You ask, Who would think you might...

Thursday Morn. July 20287 What, my dearest creature, have been your sufferings!⁠—What must have been your anguish on so disgraceful an insult, committed in the open streets, and in the broad day! No e...

Thursday Afternoon You pain me, Miss Howe, by the ardour of your noble friendship. I will be brief, because I am not well; yet a good deal better than I was; and because I am preparing an answer to yo...

[In answer to Letter 341] Thurday, July 20 I read that part of your conclusion to poor Belton, where you inquire after him, and mention how merrily you and the rest pass your time at M. Hall. He fetch...

Thursday Night I was forced to take back my twenty guineas. How the women managed it I can’t tell, (I suppose they too readily found a purchaser for the rich suit); but she mistrusted, that I was the ...

M. Hall, Friday, July 21 Just returned from an interview with this Hickman: a precise fop of a fellow, as starched as his ruffles. Thou knowest I love him not, Jack; and whom we love not we cannot all...

[In answer to Letters 340, 344, 345] Friday Night, July 21 I will throw away a few paragraphs upon the contents of thy last shocking letters just brought me; and send what I shall write by the fellow ...

Friday Noon, July 21 This morning I was admitted, as soon as I sent up my name, into the presence of the divine lady. Such I may call her; as what I have to relate will fully prove. She had had a tole...

[In continuation] You will imagine how affecting her noble speech and behaviour were to me, at the time when the bare recollecting and transcribing them obliged me to drop my pen. The women had tears ...

Saturday, July 22 What dost hate me for, Belford!⁠—and why more and more! have I been guilty of any offence thou knewest not before?⁠—If pathos can move such a heart as thine, can it alter facts!⁠—Did...

Thursday, July 20 Miss Harlowe, I cannot help acquainting you (however it may be received, coming from me) that your poor sister is dangerously ill, at the house of one Smith, who keeps a glover’s and...

[In answer] Thursday, July 20 Miss Howe, I have yours of this morning. All that has happened to the unhappy body you mentioned, is what we foretold and expected. Let him, for whose sake she abandoned ...

[In reply] Friday, July 21 Miss Arabella Harlowe, If you had half as much sense as you have ill-nature, you would (notwithstanding the exuberance of the latter) have been able to distinguish between a...

Friday, July 21 Miss Anna Howe, Your pert letter I have received. You, that spare nobody, I cannot expect should spare me. You are very happy in a prudent and watchful mother.⁠—But else mine cannot be...

Sat. July 22 It may be the misfortune of some people to engage everybody’s notice: others may be the happier, though they may be the more envious, for nobody’s thinking them worthy of any. But one wou...

Sat. July 22 Dear Madam, I send you, enclosed, copies of five letters that have passed between Miss Howe and my Arabella. You are a person of so much prudence and good sense, and (being a mother yours...

[In answer] Sat. July 22 Dear Madam, I am highly offended with my daughter’s letters to Miss Harlowe. I knew nothing at all of her having taken such a liberty. These young creatures have such romantic...

Sat. July 22 My Dearest Friend, We are busy in preparing for our little journey and voyage: but I will be ill, I will be very ill, if I cannot hear you are better before I go. Rogers greatly afflicted...

Sunday, July 23 What pain, my dearest friend, does your kind solicitude for my welfare give me! How much more binding and tender are the ties of pure friendship, and the union of like minds, than the ...

Sunday, July 23 The letter accompanying this being upon a very particular subject, I would not embarrass it, as I may say, with any other. And yet having some farther matters upon my mind, which will ...

Monday, July 24 Excuse, my dearest young lady, my long silence. I have been extremely ill. My poor boy has also been at death’s door; and, when I hoped that he was better, he has relapsed. Alas! my de...

Monday Night, July 24 My Dear Mrs. Norton, Had I not fallen into fresh troubles, which disabled me for several days from holding a pen, I should not have forborne inquiring after your health, and that...

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 ...

[In answer to Letters 347, 350] Edgware, Monday, July 24 What pains thou takest to persuade thyself, that the lady’s ill health is owing to the vile arrest, and to the implacableness of her friends. B...

Wednesday, July 26 I came not to town till this morning early: poor Belton clinging to me, as a man destitute of all other hold. I hastened to Smith’s, and had but a very indifferent account of the la...

Thursday, July 27 I went this morning, according to the lady’s invitation, to breakfast, and found Mr. Hickman with her. A good deal of heaviness and concern hung upon his countenance: but he received...

Tuesday,300 July 25. Your two affecting letters were brought to me (as I had directed any letter from you should be) to the Colonel’s, about an hour before we broke up. I could not forbear dipping int...

Thursday, July 27 My Dearest Miss Howe, After I have thankfully acknowledged your favour in sending Mr. Hickman to visit me before you set out upon your intended journey, I must chide you (in the sinc...

[Enclosed in the preceding] Thursday, July 27 My Dearest Miss Howe, Since you seem loth to acquiesce in my determined resolution, signified to you as soon as I was able to hold a pen, I beg the favour...

Friday, July 28 I have three letters of thine to take notice of:304 but am divided in my mind, whether to quarrel with thee on thy unmerciful reflections, or to thank thee for thy acceptable particula...

But now I have cleared myself of any intentional levity on occasion of my beloved’s meditation; which, as you observe, is finely suited to her case, (that is to say, as she and you have drawn her case...

[In answer to hers of July 27, See Letters 368, 369] Friday Night, July 28 I will now, my dearest friend, write to you all my mind, without reserve, on your resolution not to have this vilest of men. ...

Sat. July 29 Dear Ladies, I have not been wanting to use all my interest with my beloved friend, to induce her to forgive and be reconciled to your kinsman, (though he has so ill deserved it); and hav...

Friday, July 28 My Dearest Young Lady, I have the consolation to tell you that my son is once again in a hopeful way, as to his health. He desires his duty to you. He is very low and weak. And so am I...

Friday, July 28 Honoured Madam, Being forbid (without leave) to send you anything I might happen to receive from my beloved Miss Clary, and so ill, that I cannot attend you to ask your leave, I give y...

Sunday, July 30 We all know your virtuous prudence, worthy woman: we all do. But your partiality to this your rash favourite is likewise known. And we are no less acquainted with the unhappy body’s po...

Sat. July 29 I congratulate you, my dear Mrs. Norton, with all my heart, on your son’s recovery; which I pray to God, with all your own health, to perfect. I write in some hurry, being apprehensive of...

[In answer to hers of Friday, July 21, Letter 363] Thursday, July 27 O My Unhappy Lost Sister! What a miserable hand have you made of your romantic and giddy expedition!⁠—I pity you at my heart. You m...

Sunday, July 30 You have given me great pleasure, my dearest friend, by your approbation of my reasonings, and of my resolution founded upon them, never to have Mr. Lovelace. This approbation is so ri...

Saturday, July 29 I repine not, my dear Sister, at the severity you have been pleased to express in the letter you favoured me with; because that severity was accompanied with the grace I had petition...

Monday, July 31 My Dearest Young Lady, I must indeed own that I took the liberty to write to your mother, offering to enclose to her, if she gave me leave, yours of the 24th: by which I thought she wo...

Wednesday, Aug. 2 You give me, my dear Mrs. Norton, great pleasure in hearing of yours and your son’s recovery. May you continue, for many, many years, a blessing to each other! You tell me that you d...

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; wh...

Tuesday, Aug. 1 Dearest Madam, All our family is deeply sensible of the injuries you have received at the hands of one of it, whom you only can render in any manner worthy of the relation he stands in...

Thursday Morning, Aug. 3. Six o’clock I have been so much employed in my own and Belton’s affairs, that I could not come to town till last night; having contented myself with sending to Mrs. Lovick, t...

Thursday, Aug. 3 Dear Madam, I am infinitely obliged to you for your kind and condescending letter. A letter, however, which heightens my regrets, as it gives me a new instance of what a happy creatur...

Thursday Afternoon, Aug. 3 I am just now agreeably surprised by the following letter, delivered into my hands by a messenger from the lady. The letter she mentions, as enclosed,320 I have returned, wi...

Aug. 3, 4 Madam, You have engaged me to communicate to you, upon my honour, (making neither better nor worse of the matter), what Mr. Lovelace has written to me, in relation to yourself, in the period...

Friday, Aug. 4 Sir, I hold myself extremely obliged to you for your communications. I will make no use of them, that you shall have reason to reproach either yourself or me with. I wanted no new light...

Friday, Aug. 4 Madam, I am so sensible of the honour done me in yours of this day, that I would not delay for one moment the answering of it. I hope you will live to see many happy years; and to be yo...

Friday Night, Aug. 4 I have actually delivered to the lady the extracts she requested me to give her from your letters. I do assure you that I have made the very best of the matter for you, not that c...

[In answer to hers of July 29. See Letter 380] Thursday Morn. Aug. 3 Sister Clary, I wish you would not trouble me with any more of your letters. You had always a knack at writing; and depended upon m...

Saturday, Aug. 5 Honoured Madam, No self-convicted criminal ever approached her angry and just judge with greater awe, nor with a truer contrition, than I do you by these lines. Indeed I must say, tha...

[In answer to hers of Aug. 3. See Letter 386] Monday, Aug. 7 Dear Madam, We were all of opinion, before your letter came, that Mr. Lovelace was utterly unworthy of you, and deserved condign punishment...

Sat. Aug. 23 I am so disturbed at the contents of Miss Harlowe’s answer to my cousin Charlotte’s letter of Tuesday last, (which was given her by the same fellow that gave me yours), that I have hardly...

[In answer to Letter 383] Monday, Aug. 7 And so you have actually delivered to the fair implacable extracts of letters written in the confidence of friendship! Take care⁠—take care, Belford⁠—I do inde...

Monday, Aug. 7 Little as I have reason to expect either your patient ear, or forgiving heart, yet cannot I forbear to write to you once more, (as a more pardonable intrusion, perhaps, than a visit wou...

[In reply to Miss Montague’s of Aug. 7. See Letter 394] Tuesday, Aug. 8 Excuse me, my good Lord, and my ever-honoured Ladies, from accepting of your noble quarterly bounty; and allow me to return, wit...

Thursday Night, Aug. 10 You have been informed by Tourville, how much Belton’s illness and affairs have engaged me, as well as Mowbray and him, since my former. I called at Smith’s on Monday, in my wa...

Friday, Aug. 11 [Mr. Belford acquaints his friend with the generosity of Lord M. and the Ladies of his family; and with the Lady’s grateful sentiments upon the occasion. He says, that in hopes to avoi...

Friday, Aug. 11 It is a cruel alternative to be either forced to see you, or to write to you. But a will of my own has been long denied me; and to avoid a greater evil, nay, now I may say, the greates...

[In answer to hers to her mother. See Letter 393] Monday, Aug. 7 Poor Ungrateful, Naughty Kinswoman! Your mother neither caring, nor being permitted, to write, I am desired to set pen to paper, though...

Thursday, Aug. 10 Honoured Sir, It was an act of charity I begged: only for a last blessing, that I might die in peace. I ask not to be received again, as my severe sister (Oh! that I had not written ...

Yarmouth, Isle of Wight, Monday, Aug. 7 My Dearest Creature, I can write but just now a few lines. I cannot tell how to bear the sound of that Mr. Belford for your executor, cogent as your reasons for...

Friday, Aug. 11 I will send you a large packet, as you desire and expect; since I can do it by so safe a conveyance: but not all that is come to my hand⁠—for I must own that my friends are very severe...

[In reply to hers to her Uncle Harlowe, of Thursday, Aug. 10] Aug. 12 Unhappy Girl! As your uncle Harlowe chooses not to answer your pert letter to him; and as mine, written to you before,327 was writ...

Sunday, Aug. 13 Honoured Sir, I am very sorry for my pert letter to my uncle Harlowe. Yet I did not intend it to be pert. People new to misfortune may be too easily moved to impatience. The fall of a ...

Monday, Aug. 14 All your friends here, my dear young lady, now seem set upon proposing to you to go to one of the plantations. This, I believe, is owing to some misrepresentations of Mr. Brand; from w...

Thursday, Aug. 27 What Mr. Brand, or anybody, can have written or said to my prejudice, I cannot imagine; and yet some evil reports have gone out against me; as I find by some hints in a very severe l...

Sunday, Aug. 13 I don’t know what a devil ails me; but I never was so much indisposed in my life. At first, I thought some of my blessed relations here had got a dose administered to me, in order to g...

Monday, Aug. 15 I am extremely concerned for thy illness. I should be very sorry to lose thee. Yet, if thou diest so soon, I could wish, from my soul, it had been before the beginning of last April: a...

Tuesday, Aug. 16.332 Thank thee, Jack; most heartily I thank thee, for the sober conclusion of thy last!⁠—I have a good mind, for the sake of it, to forgive thy till now absolutely unpardonable extrac...

Thursday, Aug. 17 I am sincerely rejoiced to hear that thou art already so much amended, as thy servant tells me thou art. Thy letter looks as if thy morals were mending with thy health. This was a le...

Sat. Morn. Aug. 19 Madam, I think myself obliged in honour to acquaint you that I am afraid Mr. Lovelace will try his fate by an interview with you. I wish to Heaven you could prevail upon yourself to...

[In answer to his of Aug. 17. See Letter 413] Sunday, Aug. 20 What an unmerciful fellow art thou! A man has no need of a conscience, who has such an impertinent monitor. But if Nic. Rowe wrote a play ...

London, Aug. 21, Monday I believe I am bound to curse thee, Jack. Nevertheless I won’t anticipate, but proceed to write thee a longer letter than thou hast had from me for some time past. So here goes...

Tuesday, Aug. 22 I must write on, to divert myself: for I can get no rest; no refreshing rest. I awaked just now in a cursed fright. How a man may be affected by dreams! “Methought I had an interview ...

Curse upon my stars!⁠—Disappointed again! It was about eight when I arrived at Smith’s.⁠—The woman was in the shop. So, old acquaintance, how do you now? I know my love is above.⁠—Let her be acquainte...

Tuesday, Aug. 22 I have been under such concern for the poor man, whose exit I almost hourly expect, and at the shocking scenes his illness and his agonies exhibit, that I have been only able to make ...

Wednesday Morn. 11 o’clock I believe no man has two such servants as I have. Because I treat them with kindness, and do not lord it over my inferiors, and d⁠⸺⁠n and curse them by looks and words like ...

Wednesday Morn. Aug. 23 All alive, dear Jack, and in ecstasy!⁠—Likely to be once more a happy man! For I have received a letter from my beloved Miss Harlowe; in consequence, I suppose, of that which I...

Wedn. Evening I have been reading thy shocking letter⁠—Poor Belton! what a multitude of lively hours have we passed together! He was a fearless, cheerful fellow: who’d have thought all that should end...

Well, but now my heart is a little at ease, I will condescend to take brief notice of some other passages in thy letters. I find I am to thank thee, that the dear creature has avoided my visit. Things...

Wednesday, Three o’clock I will proceed where I left off in my last. As soon as I had seen Mowbray mounted, I went to attend upon poor Belton; whom I found in dreadful agonies, in which he awoke, afte...

Aug. 24, Thursday Morning I received thy letter in such good time, by thy fellow’s dispatch, that it gives me an opportunity of throwing in a few paragraphs upon it. I read a passage or two of it to M...

Sat. Aug. 26 On Thursday afternoon I assisted at the opening of poor Belton’s will, in which he has left me his sole executor, and bequeathed me a legacy of an hundred guineas; which I shall present t...

Friday, Aug. 18 Presuming, dearest and ever-respectable young lady, upon your former favour, and upon your opinion of my judgment and sincerity, I cannot help addressing you by a few lines on your pre...

Sat. Aug. 19 Reverend and Dear Sir, I thought, till I received your affectionate and welcome letter, that I had neither father, uncle, brother left; nor hardly a friend among my former favourers of yo...

[In answer to hers to her Uncle Antony of Aug. 13.341] Monday, Aug. 21 Sister Clary, I find by your letters to my uncles, that they, as well as I, are in great disgrace with you for writing our minds ...

Tuesday, Aug. 22 Write to me, my hard-hearted Sister, in what manner you please, I shall always be thankful to you for your notice. But (think what you will of me) I cannot see Mr. Ackland and the cou...

[In answer to hers of Thursday, Aug. 17344] Tuesday, Aug. 22 My Dearest Young Lady, The letters you sent me I now return by the hand that brings you this. It is impossible for me to express how much I...

Tuesday, Aug. 22 After I had sealed up the enclosed, I had the honour of a private visit from your aunt Hervey; who has been in a very low-spirited way, and kept her chamber for several weeks past; an...

Thursday, Aug. 24 The relation of such a conversation as passed between my aunt and you would have given me pleasure, had it come some time ago; because it would have met with a spirit more industriou...

[In Reply to Hers of Friday, Aug. 11] Yarmouth, Isle of Wight, Aug. 23347 My Dearest Friend, I have read the letters and copies of letters you favoured me with: and I return them by a particular hand....

Friday, Aug. 25 You are very obliging, my dear Miss Howe, to account to me for your silence. I was easy in it, as I doubted not that, among such near and dear friends as you are with, you was diverted...

[In this letter, the Lady acquaints Miss Howe with Mr. Brand’s report; with her sister’s proposals either that she will go abroad, or prosecute Mr. Lovelace. She complains of the severe letters of her...

Wednesday, Aug. 23 Dearest Madam, You will be surprised to find renewed, at this distance of time, an address so positively though so politely discouraged: but, however it be received, I must renew it...

Sat. Aug. 26 Sir, The generosity of your purpose would have commanded not only my notice, but my thanks, although you had not given me the alternative you are pleased to call artful. And I do therefor...

Monday Noon, Aug. 28 About the time of poor Belton’s interment last night, as near as we could guess, Lord M., Mowbray, and myself, toasted once, To the memory of honest Tom. Belton; and, by a quick t...

Monday Night, Aug. 28 I doubt you will be all impatience that you have not heard from me since mine of Thursday last. You would be still more so, if you knew that I had by me a letter ready written. I...

Wednesday, Aug. 30 I have a conversation to give you that passed between this admirable lady and Dr. H. which will furnish a new instance of the calmness and serenity with which she can talk of death,...

Tuesday Morn. Aug. 29 Now, Jack, will I give thee an account of what passed on occasion of the visit made us by Col. Morden. He came on horseback, attended by one servant; and Lord M. received him as ...

[In continuation] Tuesday Afternoon, Aug. 29 I went back, in this part of our conversation, to the day that I was obliged to come down to attend my Lord in the dangerous illness which some feared woul...

[Enclosed in the Preceding] Worthy Sir, My Very Good Friend and Patron, I arrived in town yesterday, after a tolerably pleasant journey (considering the hot weather and dusty roads). I put up at the B...

Wednesday Night, Aug. 30 It was lucky enough that our two servants met at Hannah’s,359 which gave them so good an opportunity of exchanging their letters time enough for each to return to his master e...

Thursday, 11 o’clock, Aug. 31 I am just come from the lady, whom I left cheerful and serene. She thanked me for my communication of the preceding night. I read to her such parts of your letters as I c...

Tuesday, Aug. 29 I should not, my dearest Cousin, have been a fortnight in England, without either doing myself the honour of waiting upon you in person, or of writing to you; if I had not been busyin...

Thursday, Aug. 31 I most heartily congratulate you, dear Sir, on your return to your native country. I heard with much pleasure that you were come; but I was both afraid and ashamed, till you encourag...

[In answer to his Letters 426, 440] Thursday, Aug. 31 I cannot but own that I am cut to the heart by this Miss Harlowe’s interpretation of her letter. She ought never to be forgiven. She, a meek perso...

Tuesday Night, Aug. 30 When I concluded my last, I hoped that my next attendance upon this surprising lady would furnish me with some particulars as agreeable as now could be hoped for from the declin...

Friday Morn. Sept. 1 It is surprising, that I, a man, should be so much affected as I was, at such an object as is the subject of my former letter; who also, in my late uncle’s case, and poor Belton’s...

Friday, Sept. 1 How astonishing, in the midst of such affecting scenes, is thy mirth on what thou callest my own aspirations! Never, surely, was there such another man in this world, thy talents and t...

Uxbridge, Sept. 1, Twelve o’clock at Night I send you the papers with this. You must account to me honestly and fairly, when I see you, for the earnestness with which you write for them. And then also...

Sat. Morning, Sept. 2 I have some little pleasure given me by thine, just now brought me. I see now that thou hast a little humanity left. Would to Heaven, for the dear lady’s sake, as well as for thy...

Tuesday, Aug. 29 My Dearest Friend, We are at length returned to our own home. I had intended to wait on you in London: but my mother is very ill⁠—Alas! my dear, she is very ill indeed⁠—and you are li...

Thursday, August 31 The Colonel thought fit once, in praise of Lovelace’s generosity, to say, that (as a man of honour ought) he took to himself all the blame, and acquitted you of the consequences of...

Sunday Evening, Sept. 3 I wonder not at the impatience your servant tells me you express to hear from me. I was designing to write you a long letter, and was just returned from Smith’s for that purpos...

Saturday, Sept. 2 I write, my beloved Miss Howe, though very ill still: but I could not by the return of your messenger; for I was then unable to hold a pen. Your mother’s illness (as mentioned in the...

[In answer to hers of Thursday, August 24. See Letter 433] Thursday, Aug. 31 I had written sooner, my dearest young lady, but that I have been endeavouring, ever since the receipt of your last letter,...

Monday, Sept. 4 The lady would not read the letter she had from Mrs. Norton till she had received the Communion, for fear it should contain anything that might disturb that happy calm, which she had b...

London, Sept. 4 Sir, If I may judge of the hearts of other parents by my own, I cannot doubt but you will take it well to be informed that you have yet an opportunity to save yourself and family great...

London, Sept. 4 Sir, The urgency of the case, and the opportunity by your servant, will sufficiently apologize for this trouble from a stranger to your person, who, however, is not a stranger to your ...

[In answer to Letter 460] Uxbridge, Tuesday Morn, Between 4 and 5 And can it be, that this admirable creature will so soon leave this cursed world! For cursed I shall think it, and more cursed myself,...

Tues. Sept. 9 in the Morn. at Mr. Smith’s When I read yours of this morning, I could not help pitying you for the account you give of the dreadful anxiety and suspense you labour under. I wish from my...

[In answer to Letter LVI378] My Dearest Mrs. Norton, I am afraid I shall not be able to write all that is upon my mind to say to you upon the subject of your last. Yet I will try. As to my friends, an...

Wed. Morn. Sept. 6, half an hour after Three I am not the savage which you and my worst enemies think me. My soul is too much penetrated by the contents of the letter which you enclosed in your last, ...

Tueday, Sept. 5, Six o’clock The lady remains exceedingly weak and ill. Her intellects, nevertheless, continue clear and strong, and her piety and patience are without example. Everyone thinks this ni...

Sat. Night, Sept. 2 Dear Mr. Walton, I am obliged to you for the very handsomely penned, (and elegantly written) letter which you have sent me on purpose to do justice to the character of the younger ...

Sat. Night, Sept. 2 Worthy Sir, I am under no small concern, that I should (unhappily) be the occasion (I am sure I intended nothing like it) of widening differences by light misreport, when it is the...

[In answer to Letter 467] Wedn. Morn. Sept. 6 And is she somewhat better?⁠—Blessings upon thee without number or measure! Let her still be better and better! Tell me so at least, if she be not so: for...

Wedn. Morn. Eight o’clock, (6 Sept.) Your servant arrived here before I was stirring. I sent him to Smith’s to inquire how the lady was; and ordered him to call upon me when he came back. I was please...

Kensington, Wednesday Noon Like Aesop’s traveller, thou blowest hot and cold, life and death, in the same breath, with a view, no doubt, to distract me. How familiarly dost thou use the words, dying, ...

Wednesday, Eleven o’clock Dr. H. has just been here. He tarried with me till the minister had done praying by the lady; and then we were both admitted. Mr. Goddard, who came while the doctor and the c...

[In continuation] Eight in the Evening I had but just time, in my former, to tell you that Col. Morden was arrived. He was on horseback, attended by two servants, and alighted at the door just as the ...

[In continuation] Soho, Six o’clock, Sept. 7 The lady is still alive. The Colonel having just sent his servant to let me know that she inquired after me about an hour ago, I am dressing to attend her....

[In continuation] The Colonel tells me that he had written to Mr. John Harlowe, by his servant, “That they might spare themselves the trouble of debating about a reconciliation; for that his dear cous...

Thursday Afternoon Dear Mowbray, I am glad to hear you are in town. Throw yourself the moment this comes to your hand, (if possible with Tourville), in the way of the man who least of all men deserves...

Curse upon the Colonel, and curse upon the writer of the last letter I received, and upon all the world! Thou to pretend to be as much interested in my Clarissa’s fate as myself!⁠—’Tis well for one of...

Seven o’clock, Thursday Evening, Sept. 7 I have only to say at present⁠—Thou wilt do well to take a tour to Paris; or wherever else thy destiny shall lead thee!⁠— John Belford....

Uxbridge, Sept. 7, Between Eleven and Twelve at Night Dear Jack, I send by poor Lovelace’s desire, for particulars of the fatal breviate thou sentest him this night. He cannot bear to set pen to paper...

Thursday Night I may as well try to write; since, were I to go to bed, I shall not sleep. I never had such a weight of grief upon my mind in my life, as upon the demise of this admirable woman; whose ...

Nine, Friday Morn I have no opportunity to write at length, having necessary orders to give on the melancholy occasion. Joel, who got to me by six in the morning, and whom I dispatched instantly back ...

Wednesday, Sept. 6 At length, my best beloved Miss Clary, everything is in the wished train: for all your relations are unanimous in your favour. Even your brother and your sister are with the foremos...

Wedn. Morn. Sept. 6 Dear Sister, We have just heard that you are exceedingly ill. We all loved you as never young creature was loved: you are sensible of that, sister Clary. And you have been very nau...

Wednesday, Sept. 6 We were greatly grieved, my beloved Miss Clary, at your fault; but we are still more, if possible, to hear you are so very ill; and we are sorry things have been carried so far. We ...

Friday Night, Sept. 8, Past Ten I will now take up the account of our proceedings from my letter of last night, which contained the dying words of this incomparable lady. As soon as we had seen the la...

Sat. Ten o’clock Poor Mrs. Norton is come. She was set down at the door; and would have gone upstairs directly. But Mrs. Smith and Mrs. Lovick being together and in tears, and the former hinting too s...

Most Dear Sir, With exulting confidence now does your emboldened daughter come into your awful presence by these lines, who dared not, but upon this occasion, to look up to you with hopes of favour an...

Honoured Madam, The last time I had the boldness to write to you, it was with all the consciousness of a self-convicted criminal, supplicating her offended judge for mercy and pardon. I now, by these ...

Sir, There was but one time, but one occasion, after the rash step I was precipitated upon, that I would hope to be excused looking up to you in the character of a brother and friend. And now is that ...

Now may you, my dear Arabella, unrestrained by the severity of your virtue, let fall a pitying tear on the past faults and sufferings of your late unhappy sister; since, now, she can never offend you ...

Honoured Sirs, When these lines reach your hands, your late unhappy niece will have known the end of all her troubles; and, as she humbly hopes, will be rejoicing in the mercies of a gracious God, who...

Sat. Afternoon, Sept. 9 I understand, that thou breathest nothing but revenge against me, for treating thee with so much freedom; and against the cursed woman and her infernal crew. I am not at all co...

Sat. Night Your servant gives me a dreadful account of your raving unmanageableness. I wonder not at it. But as nothing violent is lasting, I dare say that your habitual gaiety of heart will quickly g...