’The single life, at such times, has offered to me, as the life, the only life, to be chosen.  But in that, must I not now sit brooding over my past afflictions, and mourning my faults till the hour of my release?  And would not every one be able to assign the reason why Clarissa Harlowe chose solitude, and to sequester herself from the world?  Would not the look of every creature, who beheld me, appear as a reproach to me?  And would not my conscious eye confess my fault, whether the eyes of others accused me or not?  One of my delights was, to enter the cots of my poor neighbours, to leave lessons to the boys, and cautions to the elder girls:  and how should I be able, unconscious, and without pain, to say to the latter, fly the delusions of men, who had been supposed to have run away with one?

’What then, my dear and only friend, can I wish for but death?—­And what, after all, is death?  ’Tis but a cessation from mortal life:  ’tis but the finishing of an appointed course:  the refreshing inn after a fatiguing journey; the end of a life of cares and troubles; and, if happy, the beginning of a life of immortal happiness.

’If I die not now, it may possibly happen that I may be taken when I am less prepared.  Had I escaped the evils I labour under, it might have been in the midst of some gay promising hope; when my heart had beat high with the desire of life; and when the vanity of this earth had taken hold of me.

’But now, my dear, for your satisfaction let me say that, although I wish not for life, yet would I not, like a poor coward, desert my post when I can maintain it, and when it is my duty to maintain it.

’More than once, indeed, was I urged by thoughts so sinful:  but then it was in the height of my distress:  and once, particularly, I have reason to believe, I saved myself by my desperation from the most shocking personal insults; from a repetition, as far as I know, of his vileness; the base women (with so much reason dreaded by me) present, to intimidate me, if not to assist him!—­O my dear, you know not what I suffered on that occasion!—­Nor do I what I escaped at the time, if the wicked man had approached me to execute the horrid purposes of his vile heart.’

As I am of opinion, that it would have manifested more of revenge and despair than of principle, had I committed a violence upon myself, when the villany was perpetrated; so I should think it equally criminal, were I now wilfully to neglect myself; were I purposely to run into the arms of death, (as that man supposes I shall do,) when I might avoid it.