Part 2 (2/2)

The Lady's Sufferings and Distresses are unequalled. Like pure Gold, tried by the Fire of Affliction, she is found pure. She preserves her Will inviolate, her Sincerity unimpeachable, her Duty to those who do not theirs by her, intire--Is patient, serene, resigned; and, from the best Motives, aspires to a World more worthy of her, than that she longs to quit.

The Christian System, in short, is endeavoured in her Conduct to be recommended and enforced. This Life she looks upon as a Life of Probation only. She prepares for a better. Her Preparation is exemplarily set forth, and expatiated upon. She has her perfidious Lover for her Vindicator. He engages all his own Relations, who adore her (while hers, influenced by wicked Reports, persecute her) to plead for him; and that she will accept of him upon her own Terms.

Here is her Triumph. Yet not glorying in it herself; but, on reasonable and just Motives, rejecting him; Motives, that every virtuous Heart must approve of. Yet believing that she shall not long live, in the true Christian Spirit of Forgiveness, wishes and prays for his Reformation.

She as n.o.bly forgives, and prays for, and endeavours to give posthumous Comfort to, her persecuting Relations; wounding all of them deeper by the Generosity of her Forgiveness, than if they were to suffer the most cruel Deaths.

While it is one of the latent Morals of this Work, that Women, in chusing Companions for Life, should chuse companiable Men; should chuse for Men whose Hearts would probably be all their own, rather than to share with Scores perhaps the volatile mischievous one of a Libertine: In short, that they should chuse for _Mind_ and not for _Person_; and not make a Jest of a good Man, in favour of a bad, who would make a Jest of them, and of their whole s.e.x. / /

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”May my Story,” says our Heroine, Vol. ____ p. ____ ”be a Warning to all my s.e.x, how they perfer a Libertine to a Man of true Honour; and how they permit themselves, where they mean the best) [sic] to be misled by the specious, but foolish Hope of subduing _rivetted Habits_, and, as I may say, of _altering Natures_. The more foolish, as Experience might convince us, that there is hardly one in ten, of even tolerably happy Marriages, in which the Wife keeps the Hold in the Husband's Affections, which she had in the Lover's. What Influence then can she hope to have upon the Morals of an avowed Libertine, who marries perhaps for Conveniency; who despises the Tie; and whom it is too probable that nothing but Age or Sickness, or Disease (the Consequence of ruinous Riot), can reclaim.” There cannot be a more pernicious Notion, than that which is so commonly received, That a reformed Rake makes the best Husband. This Notion it was the Intent of the Author of Clarissa to explode.

The Authors of Novels and Romances, who always make their Heroes and Heroines contend with great Distresses (the more romantic, with them, the better) seem to think they have done every-thing, when they have joined the Lovers Hands; and this is called a _happy Ending_ of the Story. But, alas! it is then, too generally, that the Lovers have the greatest Difficulties to encounter with, as they then see each other in nearer and truer Lights.

And I have moreover always thought, that these sudden Conversions have neither Art, nor Nature, nor Probability in them; and that they are, besides, of very bad Example. To have a Libertine, for a Series of Years, glory in his Wickedness, and to think he had nothing to do, but, as an Act of Grace and Favour, to hold out his Hand to receive that of the best of Women, whenever he pleased, and that Marriage would be a sufficient Amends for his Villainies, I could not bear that, nor wished I, that the World should think it Amends.

I had given in the Story of Pamela what is called a happy Issue. It was, however, owing to her implicit Submission to a lordly and imperious Husband, who hardly deserved her, that she was happy; a Submission which every Woman could not have shewn. And yet she had a too well grounded Jealousy to contend with afterwards; which, for the time, tore her Heart in pieces. Nor was Mr. B's Reformation secured, till religious Considerations obtained place, on seeing the Precipice he was dancing upon with the Countess. _For we must observe_, that Reformation is not to be secured by a fine Face, by a Pa.s.sion that has Sense for its Object; nor by the Goodness of a Wife's Heart, if the Husband have not a good one of his own; and that properly touched by the divine Finger.

The Author of this Piece was willing to try to do something in this way, that never before had been done. The Tragic Poets have seldom made their Heroes _true_ Objects of Pity; and very seldom have made them in their Deaths look forward to a better Hope. And thus, when they die, they seem _totally_ to perish. Death in _such_ Instances must be terrible. It must be considered as the greatest Evil. But why is Death set in such shocking Lights, when it is the common Lot? / /

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The Heroine of this Piece shews, that she has well considered this great Point, when she says--”What is even the long Life, which in high Health we wish for? What but, as we go along, a Life of Apprehension, sometimes for our Friends, oftener for ourselves? And at last, when arrived at the old Age we covet, one heavy Loss or Deprivation having succeeded another, we see ourselves stript, as I may say, of every one we loved; and find ourselves exposed, as uncompaniable poor Creatures, to the Slights, the Contempts, of jostling Youth, who want to push us off the Stage, in Hopes to possess what we have. And, superadded to all, our own Infirmities every Day increasing; of themselves enough to make the Life we wished for, the greatest Disease of all.”

Such are the Doctrines, such the Lessons, which are endeavoured to be inculcated in the following Sheets by an Example in natural Life. The more unfas.h.i.+onable, the more irksome, these Doctrines, these Lessons, are to the Young, the Gay, and the Healthy, the more necessary are they to be inculcated. Religion never since the Reformation was at so low an Ebb as at present: And if there be those, who suppose this Work to be of the Novel Kind, it may not be amiss, even in the Opinion of such, to try whether, by an Accommodation to the light Taste of the Age a Religious Novel will do Good.

But altho' the Work, according to the Account thus far given of it, may be thought to wear a solemn Aspect, and is indeed intended to be of the Tragic Species, it will not be amiss to acquaint our youthful Readers, that they will find in the Letters of the Gentlemen, and even in many of those of one of the Ladies, Scenes and Subjects of a diverting Turn; one of the Men humorously, yet not uninstructively, glorying in his Talents for Stratagem and Invention, as he communicates to the other, in Confidence, all the secret Purposes of his Heart.

Not uninstructively, we repeat; for it is proper to apprise the serious Reader, and such as may apprehend Hurt to the Morals of Youth from their Perusal of the more freely written Letters, that the Gentlemen, tho'

professed Libertines as to the Fair s.e.x, are not, however, Infidels or Scoffers; nor yet such as think themselves freed from the Observance of those other moral Obligations which bind Man to Man. / /

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The Reader is referred to the Postscript, at the End of the last Volume, for what may be further necessary to be observed in relation to this Work.

Judges will see, that, long as the Work is, there is not one Digression, not one Episode, not one Reflection, but what arises naturally from the Subject, and makes for it, and to carry it on.

Variety of Styles and Circ.u.mstances.

The Two first Volumes chiefly written by the Two Ladies.

Two next....................................by Lovelace.

Three last.....................by the reforming Belford.

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