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

James Harlowe, Jun. Esq. The Will Letter 508: Colonel Morden, to John Belford, Esq. Letter 509: Mr. Belford, to the Right Hon. Lord M. Letter 510: Miss Montague, to John Belford, Esq. M. Hall, Letter 511: Mr. Lovelace, to John Belford, Esq. Letter 512: Mr. Lovelace, to John Belford, Esq. Letter 513: Mr. Lovelace, to John Belford, Esq. Letter 514: Mr. Belford, to Robert Lovelace, Esq. Letter 515: Mr. Lovelace, to John Belford, Esq. Letter 516: Mr. Lovelace, to John Belford, Esq. Letter 517: Mr. Belford, to Colonel Morden Letter 518: To Col. Morden Letter 519: Colonel Morden, to John Belford, Esq. Letter 520: Colonel Morden, to John Belford, Esq. Letter 521: Mr. Belford, to Miss Howe Letter 522: Miss Howe, to John Belford, Esq. Letter 523: Miss Howe, to John Belford, Esq. Letter 524: Mr. Belford, to Miss Howe Letter 525: Lord M. to John Belford, Esq. M. Hall, Letter 526: Mr. Belford, to Lord M. Letter 527: Mr. Belford, to Lord M. Letter 528: Mr. Belford, to Lord M. Letter 529: Miss Howe, to John Belford, Esq. Letter 530: Mr. Lovelace, to John Belford, Esq. Letter 531: Mr. Belford, to Robert Lovelace, Esq. Letter 532: Mr. Lovelace, to John Belford, Esq. Letter 533: Mr. Belford, to Robert Lovelace, Esq. Letter 534: Mr. Lovelace, to John Belford, Esq. Letter 535: Mr. Lovelace, to John Belford, Esq. Letter 536: Mr. Lovelace, to John Belford, Esq. Letter 537: Translation of a Letter from F. J. de la Tour Conclusion Postscript Referred to in the Preface Endnotes Colophon Uncopyright Imprint

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Preface

The following History is given in a series of letters, written principally in a double yet separate correspondence;

Between two young ladies of virtue and honor, bearing an inviolable friendship for each other, and writing not merely for amusement, but upon the most interesting subjects; in which every private family, more or less, may find itself concerned; and,

Between two gentlemen of free lives; one of them glorying in his talents for stratagem and invention, and communicating to the other, in confidence, all the secret purposes of an intriguing head and resolute heart.

But here it will be proper to observe, for the sake of such as may apprehend hurt to the morals of youth, from the more freely-written letters, that the gentlemen, though professed libertines as to the female sex, and making it one of their wicked maxims, to keep no faith with any of the individuals of it, who are thrown into their power, are not, however, either infidels or scoffers; nor yet such as think themselves freed from the observance of those other moral duties which bind man to man.

On the contrary, it will be found, in the progress of the work, that they very often make such reflections upon each other, and each upon himself and his own actions, as reasonable beings must make, who disbelieve not a future state of rewards and punishments, and who one day propose to reform⁠—one of them actually reforming, and by that means giving an opportunity to censure the freedoms which fall from the gayer pen and lighter heart of the other.

And yet that other, although in unbosoming himself to a select friend, he discovers wickedness enough to entitle him to general detestation, preserves a decency, as well in his images as in his language, which is not always to be found in the works of some of the most celebrated modern writers, whose subjects and characters have less warranted the liberties they have taken.

In the letters of the two young ladies, it is presumed, will be found not only the highest exercise of a reasonable and practicable friendship, between minds endowed with the noblest principles of virtue and religion, but occasionally interspersed, such delicacy of sentiments, particularly with regard to the other sex; such instances of impartiality, each freely, as a fundamental principle of their friendship, blaming, praising, and setting right the other, as are strongly to be recommended to the observation of the younger part (more specially) of female readers.

The principal of these two young ladies is proposed as an exemplar to her sex. Nor is it any objection to her being so, that she is not in all respects a perfect character. It was not only natural, but it was necessary, that she should have some faults, were it only to show the reader how laudably she could mistrust and blame herself, and carry to her own heart, divested of self-partiality, the censure which arose from her own convictions, and that even to the acquittal of those, because revered characters, whom no one else would acquit, and to whose much greater faults her errors were owing, and not to a weak or reproachable heart. As far as it is consistent with human frailty, and as far as she could be perfect, considering the people she had to deal with, and those with whom she was inseparably connected, she is perfect. To have been impeccable, must have left nothing for the Divine Grace and a purified state to