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

was very early happy in the conversation-visits of her learned and worthy Dr. Lewen, and in her correspondencies, not with him only, but with other divines mentioned in her last will. Her mother was, upon the whole, a good woman, who did credit to her birth and fortune; and both delighted in her for those improvements and attainments which gave her, and them in her, a distinction that caused it to be said, that when she was out of the family it was considered but as a common family.458 She was, moreover, a country lady; and, as we have seen in Miss Howe’s character of her,459 took great delight in rural and household employments; though qualified to adorn the brightest circle.

It must be confessed that we are not to look for Clarissa’s name among the constant frequenters of Ranelagh and Vauxhall, nor among those who may be called Daughters of the card-table. If we do, the character of our heroine may then, indeed, only be justly thought not improbable, but unattainable. But we have neither room in this place, nor inclination, to pursue a subject so invidious. We quit it, therefore, after we have repeated that we know there are some, and we hope there are many, in the British dominions, (or they are hardly anywhere in the European world), who, as far as occasion has called upon them to exert the like humble and modest, yet steady and useful, virtues, have reached the perfections of a Clarissa.

Having thus briefly taken notice of the most material objections that have been made to different parts of this history, it is hoped we may be allowed to add, that had we thought ourselves at liberty to give copies of some of the many letters that have been written on the other side of the question, that is to say, in approbation of the catastrophe, and of the general conduct and execution of the work, by some of the most eminent judges of composition in every branch of literature; most of what has been written in this Postscript might have been spared.

But as the principal objection with many has lain against the length of the piece, we shall add to what we have said above on that subject, in the words of one of those eminent writers: “That if, in the history before us, it shall be found that the spirit is duly diffused throughout; that the characters are various and natural; well distinguished and uniformly supported and maintained; if there be a variety of incidents sufficient to excite attention, and those so conducted as to keep the reader always awake! the length then must add proportionably to the pleasure that every person of taste receives from a well-drawn picture of nature. But where the contrary of all these qualities shock the understanding, the extravagant performance will be judged tedious, though no longer than a fairytale.”

Endnotes

Her grandfather, in order to invite her to him as often as her other friends would spare her, indulged her in erecting and fitting up a dairy-house in her own taste. When finished, it was so much admired for its elegant simplicity and convenience, that the whole seat (before, of old time, from its situation, called The Grove) was generally known by the name of The Dairy-house. Her grandfather in particular was fond of having it so called. ↩

See Mr. Lovelace’s letter, Letter 31, in which he briefly accounts for his conduct in this affair. ↩

The reason of this their more openly shown animosity is given in Letter 13. ↩

See Letter 8. ↩

Letter 5. ↩

Letter 3. ↩

Letter 4. ↩

Letters 4 and 5. ↩

See Letter 4. ↩

See Letter 4. ↩

Letter 1. ↩

Letter 2. ↩

Letter 1. ↩

See Letter 9. ↩

See Letter 10. ↩

See Letter 10 ↩

See Letter 5. ↩

See Letter 31, for Mr. Lovelace’s account of his behaviour and intentions in his appearance at church. ↩

These gentlemen affected what they called the Roman style (to wit, the thee and the thou) in their letters: and it was an agreed rule with them, to take in good part whatever freedoms they treated each other with, if the passages were written in that style. ↩

Lovelace. ↩

See Letter 20. ↩

See Letter 25. ↩

Alluding to his words in the preamble to the clauses in his will. See Letter 4. ↩

See Letter 42. ↩

See Letter 42. ↩

See Letter 40. ↩

See Letter 37, for the occasion; and Letters 38 and 40, for the freedom Clarissa apologizes for. ↩

Henry VII. ↩

See Letter 28. ↩

Spectator, Vol. VIII, No. 599. ↩

Perhaps it will be unnecessary to remind the reader, that although Mr. Lovelace proposes (as above) to Miss Howe, that her fair friend should have recourse to the protection of Mrs. Howe, if farther driven; yet he had artfully taken care, by means of his agent in the Harlowe family, not only to inflame the family against her, but to deprive her of Mrs. Howe’s, and of every other protection, being from the first resolved to reduce her to an absolute dependence upon himself. See Letter 31. ↩