Try, my dear, the success of a letter this way; and give me your opinion and advice what to do in this disgraceful situation, as I cannot but call it; and what you think of my prospects; and what you would do in my case.But before-hand I will tell you, that your advice must not run in favour of this Solmes: and yet it is very likely they will endeavour to engage your mother, in order to induce you, who have such an influence over me, to favour him.
Yet, on second thoughts, if you incline to that side of the question, I would have you write your whole mind. Determined as I think I am, and cannot help it, I would at least give a patient hearing to what may be said on the other side. For my regards are not so much engaged [upon my word they are not; I know not myself if they be] to another person as some of my friends suppose; and as you, giving way to your lively vein, upon his last visits, affected to suppose. What preferable favour I may have for him to any other person, is owing more to the usage he has received, and for my sake borne, than to any personal consideration
This begins a very specific back and forth between Anna and Clarissa on Clarissa's feelings for Lovelace. Notice how they pick up on each other's words and use them to push an interpretation or argument. I have bolded some of the places where you can see the conversation develop. Some of the things you might comment on in the following letters include the importance of the epistolary form (what it allows or not allow); how incisive Clarissa and/or Anna is in this dialogue; the degree to which Clarissa uses the letter to clarify or understand or develop her feelings about Lovelace. There's lots more of course, so don't feel bound by this prompt.
When I first read this letter (and those from Anna that follow this request), I almost felt as if these ladies were participating in rather playful conversation about some guy for whom Clarissa may or may not have romantic feelings. After giving the letter(s) a second glance, I find the author-reader relationship quite interesting and the ways in which Clarissa works through her own thoughts and feelings about Lovelace through her writing. First, the way that Clarissa requests advice from Anna and then demands that she must not show her favor for Solmes intrigues me. She says, “But before-hand I will tell you, that your advice must not run in favour of this Solmes: and yet it is very likely they will endeavour to engage your mother, in order to induce you, who have such an influence over me, to favour him.” She then follows this statement with “Yet, on second thoughts, if you incline to that side of the questions, I would have you write your whole mind.” How can one write requesting advice, but then immediately restrict the reader from giving opinions or thoughts on the subject and then immediately after ask for her reader’s “whole mind” again? How can Anna feasibly negotiate these demands Clarissa makes in her letter? By making these demands, then, Clarissa attempts to deprive her friend of offering genuine advice. In short, there is a very fine line in requesting help and denying that help in Clarissa’s letters that I would like to continue to explore in her conversations with Miss Howe. In this letter, too, there are a lot of moments where the writing seems more for Clarissa herself than to Miss Howe. Several places contain punctuation such as dashes or several exclamation marks, which in context, suggest the immediacy of the letter-writing that mimics the style of personal diary or journal more than a letter to a friend. I think that even something as seemingly insignificant as the punctuation here shows that Clarissa is, in fact, working through her own emotions and feelings about these gentlemen while writing to Anna. In addition, the back-and-forth nature of Clarissa’s request as mentioned previously in this post demonstrates the immediacy with which Clarissa writes, and there are moments within this letter and in others where Clarissa goes for quite a while without directing the content to the reader at all. This journalistic style of writing causes me to question just how much Anna Howe’s readership and response really matter to Clarissa in some instances…
I think you're absolutely right that Clarissa is using these letters as a way to work out her own feelings about her situation. It is important to consider the fact that Clarissa is entirely alone in her household. She cannot discuss this situation with her family members as they are all very set in their beliefs. It is unsurprising that she would turn to writing (whether that happened to be in a diary or, as she chooses, in a letter to a friend) in order to think through the problems she is facing. These letters are more than a correspondence. They are the only chance that Clarissa has to work through her feelings about this confusing situation.