Where doubts of any person are removed, a mind not ungenerous is willing,
by way of amends for having conceived those doubts, to construe every
thing that happens, capable of a good instruction, in that person's
favour. Particularly, I cannot but be pleased to observe, that although
he speaks of the ladies of his family with the freedom of relationship,
yet it is always of tenderness. And from a man's kindness to his
relations of the sex, a woman has some reason to expect his good
behaviour to herself, when married, if she be willing to deserve it from
him.
And thus, my dear, am I brought to sit down satisfied with this man,
where I find room to infer that he is not by nature a savage. But how
could a creature who (treating herself unpolitely) gave a man an
opportunity to run away with her, expect to be treated by that man with a
very high degree of politeness?
But why, now, when fairer prospects seem to open, why these melancholy
reflections? will my beloved friend ask of her Clarissa?
Why? Can you ask why, my dearest Miss Howe, of a creature, who, in the
world's eye, had enrolled her name among the giddy and inconsiderate; who
labours under a parent's curse, and the cruel uncertainties, which must
arise from reflecting, that, equally against duty and principle, she has
thrown herself into the power of a man, and that man an immoral one?--
Must not the sense she has of her inconsideration darken her most hopeful
prospects? Must it not even rise strongest upon a thoughtful mind, when
her hopes are the fairest? Even her pleasures, were the man to prove
better than she expects, coming to her with an abatement, like that which
persons who are in possession of ill-gotten wealth must then most
poignantly experience (if they have reflecting and unseared minds) when,
all their wishes answered, (if answered,) they sit down in hopes to enjoy
what they have unjustly obtained, and find their own reflections their
greatest torment.