Clarissa reflects back to her feelings about Peter Walsh. The fact that she thinks his letters are dull but yet remembers his sayings are a kind of paradox: if his letters are dull to her then why would she remember his sayings? Here, as Clarissa does many times throughout the novel, she recalls on the past and experiences regrets about her history with Peter Walsh – demonstrating at once a desire for things to be as they were and a rationalization for why things did not work out.