Clarissa Harlowe, or the History of a Young Lady - Volume 3 — Letter LIV

MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE, TO MISS HOWE 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 devoted.

How can it be otherwise, if a parent's curses have the weight I always attributed to them, and have heard so many instances in confirmation of that weight!

--Yes, my dear Miss Howe, superadded to all my afflictions, I have the consequences of a father's curse to struggle with!

How shall I support this reflection!

--My past and my present situation so much authorizing my apprehensions!

I have, at last, a letter from my unrelenting sister.

Would to Heaven I had not provoked it by my second letter to my aunt Hervey!

It lay ready for me, it seems.

The thunder slept, till I awakened it.

I enclose the letter itself.

Transcribe it I cannot.

There is no bearing the thoughts of it: for [shocking reflection!

] the curse extends to the life beyond this.

I am in the depth of vapourish despondency.

I can only repeat--shun, fly, correspond not with a wretch so devoted as CL. HARLOWE.

LETTER LV