Clarissa Harlowe; or the history of a young lady Volume III Part 15

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 grat.i.tude; and is oftentimes the corrupter of a heart most ign.o.ble!'

To the test then--and I will bring this charming creature to the strictest test, 'that all the s.e.x, who may be shewn any pa.s.sages 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 appet.i.te to oblige thee by interlardment,] 'that all the s.e.x, 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 she be to be a wife at the first or at the second hand?

I will proceed fairly. I do the dear creature not only strict but generous justice; for I will try her by her own judgment, as well as by our principles.

She blames herself for having corresponded with me, a man of free character; and one indeed whose first view it was to draw her into this correspondence; and who succeeded in it by means unknown to herself.

'Now, what were her inducements to this correspondence?' If not what her niceness makes her think blameworthy, why does she blame herself?

Has she been capable of error? Of persisting in that error?

Whoever was the tempter, that is not the thing; nor what the temptation.

The fact, the error, is now before us.

Did she persist in it against parental prohibition?

She owns she did.

Was a daughter ever known who had higher notions of the filial duty, of the parental authority?

Never.

'What must be the inducements, how strong, that were too strong for duty, in a daughter so dutiful?--What must my thoughts have been of these inducements, what my hopes built upon them at the time, taken in this light?'

Well, but it will be said, That her princ.i.p.al view was to prevent mischief between her brother and her other friends, and the man vilely insulted by them all.

But why should she be more concerned for the safety of others than they were for their own? And had not the rencounter then happened? 'Was a person of virtue to be prevailed upon to break through her apparent, her acknowledged duty, upon any consideration?' And, if not, was she to be so prevailed upon to prevent an apprehended evil only?

Thou, Lovelace, the tempter (thou wilt again break out and say) to be the accuser!

But I am not the accuser. I am the arguer only, and, in my heart, all the time acquit and worship the divine creature. 'But let me, nevertheless, examine, whether the acquital be owing to her merit, or to my weakness--Weakness the true name of love!'

But shall we suppose another motive?--And that is LOVE; a motive which all the world will excuse her for. 'But let me tell all the world that do, not because they ought, but because all the world is apt to be misled by it.'

Let LOVE then be the motive:--Love of whom?

A Lovelace, is the answer.

'Is there but one Lovelace in the world? May not more Lovelaces be attracted by so fine a figure? By such exalted qualities? It was her character that drew me to her: and it was her beauty and good sense that rivetted my chains: and now all together make me think her a subject worthy of my attempts, worthy of my ambition.'

But has she had the candour, the openness, to acknowledge that love?

She has not.

'Well then, if love be at the bottom, is there not another fault lurking beneath the shadow of that love?--Has she not affectation?--Or is it pride of heart?'

And what results?--'Is then the divine Clarissa capable of loving a man whom she ought not to love? And is she capable of affectation? And is her virtue founded in pride?--And, if the answer to these questions be affirmative, must she not then be a woman?'

And can she keep this love at bay? Can she make him, who has been accustomed to triumph over other women, tremble? Can she conduct herself, as to make him, at times, question whether she loves him or any man; 'yet not have the requisite command over the pa.s.sion itself in steps of the highest consequence to her honour, as she thinks,' [I am trying her, Jack, by her own thoughts,] 'but suffer herself to be provoked to promise to abandon her father's house, and go off with him, knowing his character; and even conditioning not to marry till improbably and remote contingencies were to come to pa.s.s? What though the provocations were such as would justify any other woman; yet was a CLARISSA to be susceptible to provocations which she thinks herself highly censurable for being so much moved by?'

But let us see the dear creature resolved to revoke her promise, yet meeting her lover; a bold and intrepid man, who was more than once before disappointed by her; and who comes, as she knows, prepared to expect the fruits of her appointment, and resolved to carry her off.

And let us see him actually carrying her off, and having her at his mercy--'May there not be, I repeat, other Lovelaces; other like intrepid, persevering enterprizers; although they may not go to work in the same way?

'And has then a CLARISSA (herself her judge) failed?--In such great points failed?--And may she not further fail?--Fail in the greatest point, to which all the other points, in which she has failed, have but a natural tendency?'

Nor say thou, that virtue, in the eye of Heaven, is as much a manly as a womanly grace. By virtue in this place I mean chast.i.ty, and to be superior to temptation; my Clarissa out of the question. Nor ask thou, shall the man be guilty, yet expect the woman to be guiltless, and even unsuspectible? Urge thou not these arguments, I say, since the wife, by a failure, may do much more injury to the husband, than the husband can do to the wife, and not only to her husband, but to all his family, by obtruding another man's children into his possessions, perhaps to the exclusion of (at least to a partic.i.p.ation with) his own; he believing them all the time to be his. In the eye of Heaven, therefore, the sin cannot be equal. Besides I have read in some places that the woman was made for the man, not the man for the woman. Virtue then is less to be dispensed with in the woman than in the man.

Thou, Lovelace, (methinks some better man than thyself will say,) to expect such perfection in a woman!

Yes, I, may I answer. Was not the great Caesar a great rake as to women? Was he not called, by his very soldiers, on one of his triumphant entries into Rome, the bald-pated lecher? and warning given of him to the wives, as well as to the daughter of his fellow-citizens? Yet did not Caesar repudiate his wife for being only in company with Clodius, or rather because Clodius, though by surprise upon her, was found in hers?

And what was the reason he gave for it?--It was this, (though a rake himself, as I have said,) and only this--The wife of Caesar must not be suspected!--

Caesar was not a prouder man than Lovelace.

Go to then, Jack; nor say, nor let any body say, in thy hearing, that Lovelace, a man valuing himself upon his ancestry, is singular in his expectations of a wife's purity, though not pure himself.

As to my CLARISSA, I own that I hardly think there ever was such an angel of a woman. But has she not, as above, already taken steps, which she herself condemns? Steps, which the world and her own family did not think her capable of taking? And for which her own family will not forgive her?

Nor think it strange, that I refuse to hear any thing pleaded in behalf of a standard virtue from high provocations. 'Are not provocations and temptations the tests of virtue? A standard virtue must not be allowed to be provoked to destroy or annihilate itself.

'May not then the success of him, who could carry her thus far, be allowed to be an encouragement for him to try to carry her farther?'

'Tis but to try. Who will be afraid of a trail for this divine creature?

'Thou knowest, that I have more than once, twice, or thrice, put to the fiery trial young women of name and character; and never yet met with one who held out a month; nor indeed so long as could puzzle my invention. I have concluded against the whole s.e.x upon it.' And now, if I have not found a virtue that cannot be corrupted, I will swear that there is not one such in the whole s.e.x. Is not then the whole s.e.x concerned that this trial should be made? And who is it that knows this lady, that would not stake upon her head the honour of the whole?--Let her who would refuse it come forth, and desire to stand in her place.

I must a.s.sure thee, that I have a prodigious high opinion of virtue; as I have of all those graces and excellencies which I have not been able to attain myself. Every free-liver would not say this, nor think thus--every argument he uses, condemnatory of his own actions, as some would think. But ingenuousness was ever a signal part of my character.

Satan, whom thou mayest, if thou wilt, in this case, call my instigator, put the good man of old upon the severest trial. 'To his behaviour under these trials that good man owed his honour and his future rewards.'

An innocent person, if doubted, must wish to be brought to a fair and candid trial.

Rinaldo, indeed, in Ariosto, put the Mantua Knight's cup of trial from him, which was to be the proof of his wife's chast.i.ty*--This was his argument for forbearing the experiment: 'Why should I seek a think I should be loth to find? My wife is a woman. The s.e.x is frail. I cannot believe better of her than I do. It will be to my own loss, if I find reason to think worse.' But Rinaldo would not have refused the trial of the lady, before she became his wife, and when he might have found his account in detecting her.

* The story tells us, that whoever drank of this cup, if his wife were chaste, could drink without spilling; if otherwise, the contrary.