nd notice, that my application to you would
be acceptable:--apprehending that my relations had engaged your silence
at least*--THESE--But why these unavailing retrospections now?--I was to
be unhappy--in order to be happy; that is my hope!--Resigning therefore
to that hope, I will, without any further preamble, write a few lines,
(if writing to you, I can write but a few,) in answer to the subject of
your kind letter.

* The stiff visit this good divine was prevailed upon to make her, as
mentioned in Vol. II. Letter XXXI. (of which, however, she was too
generous to remind him) might warrant the lady to think that he had
rather inclined to their party, as to the parental side, than to her's.

Permit me, then, to say, That I believe your arguments would have been
unanswerable in almost every other case of this nature, but in that of
the unhappy Clarissa Harlowe.

It is certain that creatures who cannot stand the shock of public shame,
should be doubly careful how they expose themselves to the danger of
incurring private guilt, which may possibly bring them to it. But as to
myself, suppose there were no objections from the declining way I am in
as to my health; and supposing I could have prevailed upon myself to
appear against this man; were there not room to apprehend that the end so
much wished for by my friends, (to wit, his condign punishment,) would
not have been obtained, when it came to be seen that I had consented to
give him a clandestine meeting; and, in consequence of that, had been
weakly tricked out of living under one roof with him for several weeks;
which I did, (not only without complaint, but) without cause of
complaint?

Little advantage in a court, (perhaps, bandied about, and jested
profligately with,) would some of those pleas in my favour have been,
which out of court, and to a private and serious audience, would have
carried the greatest weight against him--Such, particularly, as the
infamous methods to which he had recourse--

It would, no doubt, have been a ready retort from every mouth, that I
ought not to have thrown myself into the power of such a man, and that I
ought to take for my pains what had befallen me.

But had the prosecution been carried on to effect, and had he even been
sentenced to death, can it be supposed that his family would not have had
interest enough to obtain his pardon, for a crime thought too lightly of,
though one of the greatest that can be committed against