Florence, April 13.
I am extremely concerned to hear of a difference betwixt the rest of a
family so near and dear to me, and you still dearer to than any of the
rest.
My cousin James has acquainted me with the offers you have had, and with
your refusals. I wonder not at either. Such charming promises at so
early an age as when I left England; and those promises, as I have often
heard, so greatly exceeded, as well in your person as mind; how much must
you be admired! how few must there be worthy of you!
Your parents, the most indulgent in the world, to a child the most
deserving, have given way it seems to your refusal of several gentlemen.
They have contented themselves at last to name one with earnestness to
you, because of the address of another whom they cannot approve.
They had not reason, it seems, from your behaviour, to think you greatly
averse: so they proceeded: perhaps too hastily for a delicacy like
your's. But when all was fixed on their parts, and most extraordinary
terms concluded in your favour; terms, which abundantly show the
gentleman's just value for you; you flew off with a warmth and vehemence
little suited to that sweetness which gave grace to all your actions.
I know very little of either of the gentlemen: but of Mr. Lovelace I know
more than of Mr. Solmes. I wish I could say more to his advantage than I
can. As to every qualification but one, your brother owns there is no
comparison. But that one outweighs all the rest together. It cannot be
thought that Miss Clarissa Harlowe will dispense with MORALS in a
husband.
What, my dearest cousin, shall I plead first to you on this occasion?
Your duty, your interest, your temporal and your eternal welfare, do, and
may all, depend upon this single point, the morality of a husband. A
woman who hath a wicked husband may find it difficult to be good, and out
of her power to do good; and is therefore in a worse situation than the
man can be in, who hath a bad wife. You preserve all your religious
regards, I understand. I wonder not that you do. I should have wondered
had you not. But what can you promise youself, as to perseverance in
them, with an immoral husband?
If your parents and you differ in sentiment on this important occasion,
let me ask you, my dear cousin, who ought to give way? I own to you,
that I should have thought there could not any where have been a more
suitable match for you than Mr. Lovelace, had he been a moral man. I
should have very little to say against a man, of whose actions I am not
to set up myself as a judge, did he not address my cousin. But, on this
occasion, let me tell you, my dear Clarissa, that Mr. Lovelace cannot
possibly deserve you. He may reform, you'll say: but he may not. Habit
is not soon or easily shaken off. Libertines, who are libertines in
defiance of talents, of superior lights, of conviction, hardly ever
reform but by miracle, or by incapacity. Well do I know mine own sex.
Well am I able to judge of the probability of the reformation of a
licentious young man, who has not been fastened upon by sickness, by
affliction, by calamity: who has a prosperous run of fortune before him:
his spirits high: his will uncontroulable: the company he keeps, perhaps
such as himself, confirming him in all his courses, assisting him in
all his enterprises.
As to the other gentleman, suppose, my dear cousin, you do not like him
at present, it is far from being unlikely that you will hereafter:
perhaps the more for not liking him now. He can hardly sink lower in
your opinion: he may rise. Very seldom is it that high expectations are
so much as tolerably answered. How indeed can they, when a fine and
extensive imagination carries its expectation infinitely beyond reality,
in the highest of our sublunary enjoyments? A woman adorned with such an
imagination sees no defect in a favoured object, (the less, if she be not
conscious of any wilful fault in herself,) till it is too late to rectify
the mistakes occasioned by her generous credulity.
But suppose a person of your talents were to marry a man of inferior
talents; Who, in this case, can be so happy in herself as Miss Clarissa
Harlowe? What delight do you take in doing good! How happily do you
devote the several portions of the day to your own improvement, and to
the advantage of all that move within your sphere!--And then, such is
your taste, such are your acquirements in the politer studies, and in the
politer amusements; such your excellence in all the different parts of
economy fit for a young lady's inspection and practice, that your friends
would wish you to be taken off as little as possible by regards that may
be called merely personal.
But as to what may be the consequence respecting yourself, respecting a
young lady of your talents, from the preference you are suspected to give
to a libertine, I would have you, my dear cousin, consider what that may
be. A mind so pure, to mingle with a mind impure! And will not such a
man as this engross all your solitudes? Will he not perpetually fill you
with anxieties for him and for yourself?--The divine and civil powers
defied, and their sanctions broken through by him, on every not merely
accidental but meditated occasion. To be agreeable to him, and to hope
to preserve an interest in his affections, you must probably be obliged
to abandon all your own laudable pursuits. You must enter into his
pleasures and distastes. You must give up your virtuous companions for
his profligate ones--perhaps be forsaken by your's, because of the
scandal he daily gives. Can you hope, cousin, with such a man as this to
be long so good as you now are? If not, consider which of your present
laudable delights you would choose to give up! which of his culpable ones
to follow him in! How could you brook to go backward, instead of
forward, in those duties which you now so exemplarily perform? and how do
you know, if you once give way, where you shall be suffered, where you
shall be able, to stop?
Your brother acknowledges that Mr. Solmes is not near so agreeable in
person as Mr. Lovelace. But what is person with such a lady as I have
the honour to be now writing to? He owns likewise that he has not the
address of Mr. Lovelace: but what a mere personal advantage is a
plausible address, without morals? A woman had better take a husband
whose manners she were to fashion, than to find them ready-fashioned to
her hand, at the price of her morality; a price that is often paid for
travelling accomplishments. O my dear cousin, were you but with us here
at Florence, or at Rome, or at Paris, (where also I resided for many
months,) to see the gentlemen whose supposed rough English manners at
setting out are to be polished, and what their improvement are in their
return through the same places, you would infinitely prefer the man in
his first stage to the same man in his last. You find the difference on
their return--a fondness for foreign fashions, an attachment to foreign
vices, a supercilious contempt of his own country and countrymen;
(himself more despicable than the most despicable of those he despises;)
these, with an unblushing effrontery, are too generally the attainments
that concur to finish the travelled gentleman!
Mr. Lovelace, I know, deserves to have an exception made in his favour;
for he really is a man of parts and learning: he was esteemed so both
here and at Rome; and a fine person, and a generous turn of mind, gave
him great advantages. But you need not be told that a libertine man of
sense does infinitely more mischief than a libertine of weak parts is
able to do. And this I will tell you further, that it was Mr. Lovelace's
own fault that he was not still more respected than he was among the
literati here. There were, in short, some liberties in which he
indulged himself, that endangered his person and his liberty; and made
the best and most worthy of those who honoured him with their notice
give him up, and his stay both at Florence and at Rome shorter than he
designed.
This is all I choose to say of Mr. Lovelace. I had much rather have had
reason to give him a quite contrary character. But as to rakes or
libertines in general, I, who know them well, must be allowed, because of
the mischiefs they have always in their hearts, and too often in their
power, to do your sex, to add still a few more words upon this topic.
A libertine, my dear cousin, a plotting, an intriguing libertine, must be
generally remorseless--unjust he must always be. The noble rule of doing
to others what he would have done to himself is the first rule he breaks;
and every day he breaks it; the oftener, the greater his triumph. He has
great contempt for your sex. He believes no woman chaste, because he is
a profligate. Every woman who favours him confirms him in his wicked
incredulity. He is always plotting to extend the mischiefs he delights
in. If a woman loves such a man, how can she bear the thought of
dividing her interest in his affections with half the town, and that
perhaps the dregs of it? Then so sensual!--How will a young lady of your
delicacy bear with so sensual a man? a man who makes a jest of his vows?
and who perhaps will break your spirit by the most unmanly insults. To
be a libertine, is to continue to be every thing vile and inhuman.
Prayers, tears, and the most abject submission, are but fuel to his
pride: wagering perhaps with lewd companions, and, not improbably, with
lewder women, upon instances which he boasts of to them of your patient
sufferings, and broken spirit, and bringing them home to witness to both.