LETTER LXXV
MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE, TO HER MOTHERSATURDAY, AUG. 5
HONOURED MADAM,
No self-convicted criminal ever approached her angry and just judge withgreater awe, nor with a truer contrition, than I do you by these lines.
Indeed I must say, that if the latter of my humble prayer had notrespected my future welfare, I had not dared to take this liberty. Butmy heart is set upon it, as upon a thing next to God Almighty'sforgiveness necessary for me.
Had my happy sister known my distresses, she would not have wrung myheart, as she has done, by a severity, which I must needs think unkindand unsisterly.
But complaint of any unkindness from her belongs not to me: yet, as sheis pleased to write that it must be seen that my penitence is less owingto disappointment than to true conviction, permit me, Madam, to insistupon it, that, if such a plea can be allowed me, I an actually entitledto the blessing I sue for; since my humble prayer is founded upon a trueand unfeigned repentance: and this you will the readier believe, if thecreature who never, to the best of her remembrance, told her mamma awilful falsehood may be credited, when she declares, as she does, in themost solemn manner, that she met the seducer with a determination not togo off with him: that the rash step was owing more to compulsion than toinfatuation: and that her heart was so little in it, that she repentedand grieved from the moment she found herself in his power; and for everymoment after, for several weeks before she had any cause from him toapprehend the usage she met with.
Wherefore, on my knees, my ever-honoured Mamma, (for on my knees I writethis letter,) I do most humbly beg your blessing: say but, in so manywords, (I ask you not, Madam, to call me your daughter,)--Lost, unhappywretch, I forgive you! and may God bless you!--This is all! Let me, ona blessed scrap of paper, but see one sentence to this effect, under yourdear hand, that I may hold it to my heart in my most trying struggles,and I shall think it a passport to Heaven. And, if I do not too muchpresume, and it were WE instead of I, and both your honoured namessubjoined to it, I should then have nothing more to wish. Then would Isay, 'Great and merciful God! thou seest here in this paper thy poorunworthy creature absolved by her justly-offended parents: Oh! join, formy Redeemer's sake, thy all-gracious fiat, and receive a repentant sinnerto the arms of thy mercy!'
I can conjure you, Madam, by no subject of motherly tenderness, that willnot, in the opinion of my severe censurers, (before whom this humbleaddress must appear,) add to reproach: let me therefore, for God's sake,prevail upon you to pronounce me blest and forgiven, since you willthereby sprinkle comfort through the last hours of
YourCLARISSA HARLOWE.
Clarissa Harlowe; or the history of a young lady — Volume 7 Page 74