Remarks on Clarissa (1749) Part 3

'See the Difference in our Cases; she the charming Injured can sweetly sleep, whilst the varlet Injurer cannot close his Eyes, and has been trying to no purpose the whole Night to divert his Melancholy, and to fly from himself.'

Rightly I think in the Author's Postscript is it observed, that what is called poetical Justice is chimerical, or rather anti-providential Justice; for G.o.d makes his Sun to s.h.i.+ne alike on the Just and the Unjust. Why then should Man invent a kind of imaginary Justice, making the common Accidents of Life turn out favourable to the Virtuous only?

Vain would be the Comforts spoken to the Virtuous in Affliction, in the sacred Writings, if Affliction could not be their Lot.

But the Author of _Clarissa_ has in his Postscript quoted such undoubted Authorities, and given so many Reasons on the Christian System for his Catastrophy, that to say more on that Head would be but repeating his Words. The Variety of Punishments also of those guilty Persons in this Work who do not die, and the Rewards of those who are innocent, I could go through; had not that Postscript, and the Conclusion supposed to be writ by Mr. _Belford_, already done it to my Hands. Only one thing I must say, that I don't believe the most revengeful Person upon Earth could wish their worst Enemy in a more deplorable Situation, than if _Lovelace_ in his Frenzy, in that charming picturesque Scene, where he is riding between _Uxbridge_ and _London_, when his impatient Spirit is in suspence; and also when he hears of _Clarissa's_ Death.

Thus have I just hinted at the Heads of the Characters, the Difference of the chief Scenes, and the Variety of the several Deaths, all the natural Consequences of the several Lives, and productive of the designed n.o.ble Moral in _Clarissa_; and I think it may be fairly and impartially said, The Web is wove so strongly, every Part so much depending on and a.s.sisting each other, that to divide any of them, would be to destroy the whole.

[D]_That many Things having full References To one Consent, may work contrariously: As many Arrows, loosed several Ways, Come to one Mark, as many Ways meet in one Town, As many fresh Streams meet in one salt Sea, As many Lines close in the Dial's Center, So may a thousand Actions once afoot End in one Purpose, and be all well born Without Defeat._

[D] See _Shakespear's Henry_ the Vth.

If what I have here said can be any Amus.e.m.e.nt to you, as it concerns your favourite _Clarissa_, my End will be answered. I am,

_Madam,_

_Your's,_ &c.

BELLARIO.

_Miss_ GIBSON _to_ BELLARIO.

~_SIR,_~

Your Good-nature in sending me your Thoughts on _Clarissa_, with a Design to give me Pleasure, I a.s.sure you is not thrown away; may you have equal Success in every generous Purpose that fills your Heart, and greater Happiness in this World, I am sure I cannot wish you.

Most truly, Sir, do you remark, that a Story told in this Manner can move but slowly, that the Characters can be seen only by such as attend strictly to the Whole; yet this Advantage the Author gains by writing in the present Tense, as he himself calls it, and in the first Person, that his Strokes penetrate immediately to the Heart, and we feel all the Distresses he paints; we not only weep for, but with _Clarissa_, and accompany her, step by step, through all her Distresses.

I see her from the Beginning, in her happy State, beloved by all around her, studying to deserve that Love; obedient to her Parents, dependant on their Will by her own voluntary Act, when her Grandfather had put it in her Power to be otherwise; respectful and tender to her Brother and Sister; firm in her Friends.h.i.+p to Miss _Howe_; grateful to good Mrs.

_Norton_, who had carefully watched over her Infant Years, and delighted to form and instruct her Mind; kind to her Inferiors; beneficent to all the Poor, Miserable, and Indigent; and above all, cultivating and cheris.h.i.+ng in her Heart the true Spirit of Christianity, Meekness, and Resignation; watchful over her own Conduct, and charitable to the Failings of others; unwilling to condemn, and rejoicing in every Opportunity to praise. But as the Laws of G.o.d and Man have placed a Woman totally in the Power of her Husband, I believe it is utterly impossible for any young Woman, who has any Reflection, not to form in her Mind some kind of Picture of the Sort of Man in whose Power she would chuse to place herself. That _Clarissa_ did so, I think, plainly appears, from her steady Resolution to refuse any Man she could not obey with the utmost Chearfulness; and to whose Will she could not submit without Reluctance. She would have had her Husband a Man on whose Principles she could entirely depend; one in whom she might have placed such a Confidence, that she might have spoke her very Thoughts aloud; one from whom she might have gained Instruction, and from whose Superiority of Understanding she would have been pleased to have taken the Rules of her own Actions. She desired no Reserves, no separate Interest from her Husband; had no Plots, no Machinations to succeed in, and therefore wanted not a Man who by artful Flattery she could have cajoled madly to have wors.h.i.+p'd her; a kind Indulgence, in what was reasonable, was all her Desire, and that Indulgence to arise from her own Endeavour to deserve it, and not from any Blindness cast before her Husband's Eyes by dazzling Beauty, or cunning Dissimulation; but, from her Infancy, having the Example daily before her of her Mother's being tyrannized over, notwithstanding her great Humility and Meekness, perhaps tyrannized over for that very Humility and Meekness. She thought a single Life, in all Probability, would be for her the happiest; cheris.h.i.+ng in her Heart that Characteristic of a n.o.ble Mind, especially in a Woman, of wis.h.i.+ng, as Miss _Howe_ says she did, to pa.s.s through Life unnoted.

In this State of Mind did _Lovelace_ first find _Clarissa_. She liked him; his Person and Conversation were agreeable, but the Libertinism of his Character terrified her; and her Disapprobation of him restrained her from throwing the Reins over the Neck of a Pa.s.sion she thought might have hurried her into Ruin. But when by his Artifices, and the Cruelty of her Friends, she was driven into his Power, had he not, to use her own Words, treated her with an Insolence unbecoming a Man, and kept her very Soul in suspence; fawning at her Feet to marry him, whilst, in the same Instant, he tried to confuse her by a Behaviour that put it out of her Power to comply with him; there was nothing that she would not have done to oblige him. Then indeed she plainly saw that her Principles and his Profligacy, her Simplicity and his Cunning, were not made to be joined; and when she found such was the Man she liked best, no Wonder her Desire of a single Life should return. She saw, indeed, her own Superiority over _Lovelace_, but it was his Baseness that made her behold it. And here I must observe, that in the very same Breath in which she tells him, _Her Soul's above him_, she bids him _leave her_, that Thought more than any other makes her resolve, at all Events, to abandon him. Was this like exulting in her own Understanding, and proudly (as I have heard it said) wanting to dictate to the Man she intended for a Husband? Such a Woman, if I am not greatly mistaken, would not desire the Man to leave her because she saw her Soul was above him; but on the contrary, concealing from him, and disguising her Thoughts, would have set Art against Art, and been the more delighted to have drawn him in to have married her, that she might have deceived him, and enjoyed the Thoughts of her own Superiority for Life. As I remember, he never asks her fairly to marry him but once, and then she consents: But how different in every Action is she from the sly and artful Woman, who would have s.n.a.t.c.hed at this Opportunity, and not have trusted him with a Moment's Delay, whilst _Clarissa_, being then ill, consents, with a Confidence that nothing but her Goodness and Simplicity could have had in such a Man.

Tho' _Clarissa_ unfortunately met with _Lovelace_, yet I can imagine her with a Lover whose honest Heart, a.s.simulating with hers, would have given her leave, as she herself wishes, to have shewn the Frankness of her Disposition, and to have openly avowed her Love. But _Lovelace_, by his own intriguing Spirit, made her Reserves, and then complained of them; and as she was engaged with such a Man, I think the Catastrophe's being what is called _Unhappy_, is but the natural Consequence of such an Engagement; tho', I confess, I was not displeased that the Report of this Catastrophe met with so many Objections, as it proved what an Impression the Author's favourite Character had made on those Minds which could not bear she should fall a Sacrifice to the Barbarity of her Persecutors. And I hope that now all the Readers of _Clarissa_ are convinced how rightly the Author has judged in this Point. If the Story was not to have ended tragically, the grand Moral would have been lost, as well as that grand Picture, if I may call it so, of human Life, of a Man's giving up every thing that is valuable, only because every thing that is valuable is in his Power. _Lovelace_ thought of the Substance, whilst that was yet to be persued; but once within reach of it, his plotting Head and roving Imagination would let him see only the Shadow, and once enter'd into the Pursuit, his Pride, the predominant Pa.s.sion of his Soul, engaged him to fly after a visionary Gratification which his own wild Fancy had painted, till, like one following an _Ignis fatuus_ through By-Paths and crooked Roads, he lost himself in the Eagerness of his own Pursuit, and involved with him the innocent _Clarissa_, who, persecuted, misunderstood, envied, and evil-treated as she had been, by those from whom she had most Reason to hope Protection, I think could not find a better Close to her Misfortunes than a triumphant Death.

Triumphant it may very well be called, when her Soul, fortified by a truly Christian Philosophy, melted and softened in the School of Affliction, had conquered every earthly Desire, baffled every uneasy Pa.s.sion, lost every disturbing Fear, while nothing remained in her tender Bosom but a lively Hope of future Happiness. When her very Griefs were in a manner forgot, the Impression of them as faint and languid as a feverish Dream to one restored to Health, all calm and serene her Mind, forgiving and praying for her worst Enemies, she retired from all her Afflictions, to meet the Reward of her Christian Piety.

The Death of _Clarissa_ is, I believe, the only Death of the Kind in any Story; and in her Character, the Author has thrown into Action (if I may be allowed the Expression) the true Christian Philosophy, shewn its Force to enn.o.ble the human Mind, till it can look with Serenity on all human Misfortunes, and take from Death itself its gloomy Horrors. Never was any thing more judicious than the Author's bringing _Lovelace_ as near as _Knight's-Bridge_ at the Time of _Clarissa's_ Death; for by that means he has in a manner contrived to place in one View before our Eyes the guilty Ravager of unprotected Innocence, the boasting Vaunter of his own useless Parts, in all the Horrors of mad Despair, whilst the injured Innocent, in a pious, in a divine Frame of Mind is peaceably breathing her last. 'Such a Smile! such a charming Serenity (says Mr. _Belford_) overspreading her sweet Face at the Instant, as seemed to manifest her eternal Happiness already begun.'

Surely the Tears we shed for _Clarissa_ in her last Hours, must be Tears of tender Joy! Whilst we seem to live, and daily converse with her through her last Stage, our Hearts are at once rejoiced and amended, are both soften'd and elevated, till our Sensations grow too strong for any Vent, but that of Tears; nor am I ashamed to confess, that Tears without Number have I shed, whilst Mr. _Belford_ by his Relation has kept me (as I may say) with fixed Attention in her Apartment, and made me perfectly present at her n.o.ble exalted Behaviour; nor can I hardly refrain from crying out, 'Farewell, my dear _Clarissa_! may every Friend I love in this World imitate you in their Lives, and thus joyfully quit all the Cares and Troubles that disturb this mortal Being!'

May _Clarissa's_ Memory be as triumphant as was her Death! May all the World, like _Lovelace_, bear Testimony to her Virtues, and acknowledge her Triumph!

I am with many Thanks, Sir, for your obliging Letter,

_Your most obedient_, &c.

HARRIOTE GIBSON.

These Letters were shewn me by Miss _Gibson_, and thus, Sir, have I collected together all I have heard on your History of _Clarissa_; and if every thing that Miss _Gibson_ and _Bellario_ has said, is fairly deducible from the Story, then I am certain, by the candid and good-natured Reader, this will be deemed a fair and impartial Examination, tho' I avow myself the sincere Admirer of _Clarissa_, and

_Your very humble Servant,_

~_FINIS._~