Clarissa Harlowe, Samuel Richardson [black authors fiction .txt] 📗

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 daughters 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 anybody 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 anything 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 trial 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 sex 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 sex. Is not then the whole sex 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 assure 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 chastity76⁠—This was his argument for forbearing the experiment: “Why should I seek a thing I should be loth to find? My wife is a woman. The sex 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.

For my part, I would not have put the cup from me, though married, had it been but in hope of finding reason to confirm my good opinion of my wife’s honour; and that I might know whether I had a snake or a dove in my bosom.

To my point⁠—“What must that virtue be which will not stand a trial?⁠—What that woman who would wish to shun it?”

Well, then, a trial seems necessary for the furthest establishment of the honour of so excellent a creature.

And who shall put her to this trial? Who, but the man who has, as she thinks, already induced her in lesser points to swerve?⁠—And this for her own sake in a double sense⁠—not only, as he has been able to make some impression, but as she regrets the impression made; and so may be presumed to be guarded against his further attempts.

The situation she is at present in, it must be confessed is a disadvantageous one to her: but, if she overcome, that will redound to her honour.

Shun not, therefore, my dear soul, further trials, nor hate me for making them.⁠—“For what woman can be said to be virtuous till she has been tried?

“Nor is one effort, one trial, to be sufficient. Why? Because a woman’s heart may at one time be adamant, at another wax”⁠—as I have often experienced. And so, no doubt, hast thou.

A fine time of it, methinks, thou sayest, would the woman have, if they were all to be tried⁠—!

But, Jack, I am not for that neither. Though I am a rake, I am not a rake’s friend; except thine and company’s.

And be this one of the morals of my tedious discussion⁠—“Let the little rogues who would not be put to the question, as I may call it, choose accordingly. Let them prefer to their favour good honest sober fellows, who have not been used to play dog’s tricks: who will be willing to take them as they offer; and, who being tolerable themselves, are not suspicious of others.”

But what, methinks thou askest, is to become of the lady if she fail?

What?⁠—Why will she not, “if once subdued, be always subdued?” Another of our libertine maxims. And what an immense pleasure to a marriage-hater, what rapture to