Read Clarissa Harlowe; or the history of a young lady — Volume 9 Page 14
LETTER XIV
TO THE EVER-HONOURED JAS. HARLOWE, SEN. ESQ.
MOST DEAR SIR,
With exulting confidence now does your emboldened daughter come into yourawful presence by these lines, who dared not, but upon this occasion, tolook up to you with hopes of favour and forgiveness; since, when thiscomes to your hands, it will be out of her power ever to offend you more.
And now let me bless you, my honoured Papa, and bless you, as I write,upon my knees, for all the benefits I have received from your indulgence:for your fond love to me in the days of my prattling innocence: for thevirtuous education you gave me: and for, the crown of all, the happy end,which, through divine grace, by means of that virtuous education, I hope,by the time you will receive this, I shall have made. And let me beg ofyou, dear, venerable Sir, to blot out from your remembrance, if possible,the last unhappy eight months; and then I shall hope to be rememberedwith advantage for the pleasure you had the goodness to take in yourClarissa.
Still on her knees, let your poor penitent implore your forgiveness ofall her faults and follies; more especially of that fatal error whichthrew her out of your protection.
When you know, Sir, that I have never been faulty in my will; that eversince my calamity became irretrievable, I have been in a state ofpreparation; that I have the strongest assurance that the Almighty hasaccepted my unfeigned repentance; and that by this time you will (as Ihumbly presume to hope,) have been the means of adding one to the numberof the blessed; you will have reason for joy rather than sorrow. Since,had I escaped the snares by which I was entangled, I might have wantedthose exercises which I look upon now as so many mercies dispensed towean me betimes from a world that presented itself to me with prospectstoo alluring; and in that case (too easily satisfied with the worldlyfelicity) I might not have attained to that blessedness, in which now,on your reading of this, I humbly presume, (through the divine goodness,)I am rejoicing.
That the Almighty, in his own good time, will bring you, Sir, and myever-honoured mother, after a series of earthly felicities, of which myunhappy fault be the only interruption, (and very grievous I know thatmust have been,) to rejoice in the same blessed state, is the repeatedprayer of, Sir,