# Letter 488: To the Ever-Honoured Jas. Harlowe, Sen. Esq. explained — Clarissa

> Chapter companion for Clarissa by Samuel Richardson.

## What happens

Clarissa writes a final letter to her father, asking for forgiveness and blessing him for his past kindness. She expresses repentance for her errors, hopes for a happy end through divine grace, and suggests that her death will bring her to a state of blessedness.

## Themes in this chapter

### Suffering and Redemption

Clarissa frames her suffering as a divine mercy that weaned her from worldly allurements, leading to a blessed end through repentance.

### Family Obligation and Rebellion

Clarissa acknowledges her 'fatal error' of leaving her father's protection and seeks forgiveness, highlighting the tension between duty and her actions.

## Character check-ins

### Clarissa Harlowe

The writer, now emboldened to address her father as she nears death, expressing repentance and hope for forgiveness.

### Mr. John Harlowe

The recipient of the letter, Clarissa's father, whom she begs to forgive her and remember her with kindness.

### Mrs. Harlowe

Clarissa's mother, mentioned in the prayer for future felicity.

## Key lines

> With exulting confidence now does your emboldened daughter come into your awful presence by these lines, who dared not, but upon this occasion, to look up to you with hopes of favour and forgiveness; since, when this comes to your hands, it will be out of her power ever to offend you more.

Your now bold daughter writes to you with joy, knowing that by the time you read this, she will be beyond the ability to cause you any further offense.

_Clarissa announces her impending death as the reason she can finally approach her father without fear._

> And let me beg of you, dear, venerable Sir, to blot out from your remembrance, if possible, the last unhappy eight months; and then I shall hope to be remembered with advantage for the pleasure you had the goodness to take in your Clarissa.

Please forget the last eight months of trouble, and remember me instead for the joy I once brought you.

_Clarissa asks her father to erase the memory of her recent errors and recall only her earlier innocence._

> Since, had I escaped the snares by which I was entangled, I might have wanted those exercises which I look upon now as so many mercies dispensed to wean me betimes from a world that presented itself to me with prospects too alluring; and in that case (too easily satisfied with the worldly felicity) 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.

If I had avoided the traps that caught me, I might have missed the trials that turned me away from worldly pleasures and led me to eternal happiness.

_Clarissa reinterprets her suffering as a divine gift that secured her salvation._

## Links

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