Clarissa Harlowe Samuel Richardson (most important books to read TXT) 📖

made me doubt her love? Has she not taken officious pains to declare that she was not averse to Solmes for any respect she had to me? and her sorrow for putting herself out of his reach, that is to say, for meeting me?

Then, what a triumph would it be to the Harlowe pride, were I now to marry this lady? A family beneath my own! No one in it worthy of an alliance with but her! My own estate not contemptible! Living within the bounds of it, to avoid dependence upon their betters, and obliged to no man living! My expectations still so much more considerable! My person, my talents⁠—not to be despised, surely⁠—yet rejected by them with scorn. Obliged to carry on an underhand address to their daughter, when two of the most considerable families in the kingdom have made overtures, which I have declined, partly for her sake, and partly because I never will marry; if she be not the person. To be forced to steal her away, not only from them, but from herself! And must I be brought to implore forgiveness and reconciliation from the Harlowes?⁠—Beg to be acknowledged as the son of a gloomy tyrant, whose only boast is his riches? As a brother to a wretch, who has conceived immortal hatred to me; and to a sister who was beneath my attempts, or I would have had her in my own way, and that with a tenth part of the trouble and pains that her sister has cost me; and, finally, as a nephew to uncles, who value themselves upon their acquired fortunes, would insult me as creeping to them on that account?⁠—Forbid it in the blood of the Lovelaces, that your last, and, let me say, not the meanest of your stock, should thus creep, thus fawn, thus lick the dust, for a wife⁠—!

Proceed anon.

Letter 110 Mr. Lovelace, to John Belford, Esq.

[In continuation]

But is it not the divine Clarissa (Harlowe let me not say; my soul spurns them all but her) whom I am thus by application threatening?⁠—If virtue be the true nobility, how is she ennobled, and how shall an alliance with her ennoble, were not contempt due to the family from whom she sprang and prefers to me!

But again, let me stop.⁠—Is there not something wrong, has there not been something wrong, in this divine creature? And will not the reflections upon that wrong (what though it may be construed in my favour?75) make me unhappy, when novelty has lost its charms, and when, mind and person, she is all my own? Libertines are nicer, if at all nice, than other men. They seldom meet with the stand of virtue in the women whom they attempt. And, by the frailty of those they have triumphed over, they judge of all the rest. “Importunity and opportunity no woman is proof against, especially from the persevering lover, who knows how to suit temptations to inclinations:” This, thou knowest, is a prime article of the rake’s creed.

And what! (methinks thou askest with surprise) Dost thou question this most admirable of women?⁠—The virtue of a Clarissa dost thou question?

I do not, I dare not question it. My reverence for her will not let me directly question it. But let me, in my turn, ask thee⁠—Is not, may not her virtue be founded rather in pride than in principle? Whose daughter is she?⁠—And is she not a daughter? If impeccable, how came she by her impeccability? The pride of setting an example to her sex has run away with her hitherto, and may have made her till now invincible. But is not that pride abated? What may not both men and women be brought to do in a mortified state? What mind is superior to calamity? Pride is perhaps the principal bulwark of female virtue. Humble a woman, and may she not be effectually humbled?

Then who says Miss Clarissa Harlowe is the paragon of virtue?⁠—Is virtue itself?

All who know her, and have heard of her, it will be answered.

Common bruit!⁠—Is virtue to be established by common bruit only?⁠—Has her virtue ever been proved?⁠—Who has dared to try her virtue?

I told thee, I would sit down to argue with myself; and I have drawn myself into argumentation before I was aware.

Let me enter into a strict discussion of this subject.

I know how ungenerous an appearance what I have said, and what I have further to say, on this topic, will have from me: But am I not bringing virtue to the touchstone, with a view to exalt it, if it come out to be proof?⁠—“Avaunt then, for one moment, all consideration that may arise from a weakness which some would miscall gratitude; and is oftentimes the corrupter of a heart most ignoble!”

To the test then⁠—and I will bring this charming creature to the strictest test, “that all the sex, who may be shown any passages in my letters,” (and I know thou cheerest the hearts of all thy acquaintance with such detached parts of mine as tend not to dishonour characters or reveal names: and this gives me an appetite to oblige thee by interlardment), “that all the sex, I say, may see what they ought to be; what is expected from them; and if they have to deal with a person of reflection and punctilio, (of pride, if thou wilt), how careful they ought to be, by a regular and uniform conduct, not to give him cause to think lightly of them for favours granted, which may be interpreted into natural weakness. For is not a wife the keeper of a man’s honour? And do not her faults bring more disgrace upon a husband than even upon herself?”

It is not for nothing, Jack, that I have disliked the life of shackles.

To the test then, as I said, since now I have the question brought home to me, Whether I am to have a wife? And whether