Clarissa Harlowe, Volume 9 (of 9) by Samuel Richardson

S >> Samuel Richardson >> Clarissa Harlowe, Volume 9 (of 9)

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Two letters, however, by way of accommodation, are inserted in this
edition, which perhaps will give Mr. Hickman's character some heightening
with such ladies as love spirit in a man; and had rather suffer by it,
than not meet with it.--

Women, born to be controul'd,
Stoop to the forward and the bold,

Says Waller--and Lovelace too!

Some have wished that the story had been told in the usual narrative way
of telling stories designed to amuse and divert, and not in letters
written by the respective persons whose history is given in them. The
author thinks he ought not to prescribe to the taste of others; but
imagined himself at liberty to follow his own. He perhaps mistrusted his
talents for the narrative kind of writing. He had the good fortune to
succeed in the epistolary way once before. A story in which so many
persons were concerned either principally or collaterally, and of
characters and dispositions so various, carried on with tolerable
connection and perspicuity, in a series of letters from different
persons, without the aid of digressions and episodes foreign to the
principal end and design, he thought had novelty to be pleaded for it;
and that, in the present age, he supposed would not be a slight
recommendation.

Besides what has been said above, and in the Preface, on this head, the
following opinion of an ingenious and candid foreigner, on this manner of
writing, may not be improperly inserted here.

'The method which the author had pursued in the History of Clarissa, is
the same as in the Life of Pamela: both are related in familiar letters
by the parties themselves, at the very time in which the events happened:
and this method has given the author great advantages, which he could not
have drawn from any other species of narration. The minute particulars
of events, the sentiments and conversation of the parties, are, upon this
plan, exhibited with all the warmth and spirit that the passion supposed
to be predominant at the very time could produce, and with all the
distinguishing characteristics which memory can supply in a history of
recent transactions.

'Romances in general, and Marivaux's amongst others, are wholly
improbable; because they suppose the History to be written after the
series of events is closed by the catastrophe: a circumstance which
implies a strength of memory beyond all example and probability in the
persons concerned, enabling them, at the distance of several years, to
relate all the particulars of a transient conversation: or rather, it
implies a yet more improbable confidence and familiarity between all
these persons and the author.

'There is, however, one difficulty attending the epistolary method; for
it is necessary that all the characters should have an uncommon taste for
this kind of conversation, and that they should suffer no event, not even
a remarkable conversation to pass, without immediately committing it to
writing. But for the preservation of the letters once written, the
author has provided with great judgment, so as to render this
circumstance highly probable.'*

* This quotation is translated from a CRITIQUE on the HISTORY OF
CLARISSA, written in French, and published at Amsterdam. The whole
Critique, rendered into English, was inserted in the Gentleman's Magazine
of June and August, 1749. The author has done great honour in it to the
History of Clarissa; and as there are Remarks published with it, which
answer several objections made to different passages in the story by that
candid foreigner, the reader is referred to the aforesaid Magazine for
both.

It is presumed that what this gentleman says of the difficulties
attending a story thus given in the epistolary manner of writing, will
not be found to reach the History before us. It is very well accounted
for in it, how the two principal female characters came to take so great
a delight in writing. Their subjects are not merely subjects of
amusement; but greatly interesting to both: yet many ladies there are who
now laudably correspond, when at distance from each other, on occasions
that far less affect their mutual welfare and friendships, than those
treated of by these ladies. The two principal gentlemen had motives of
gaiety and vain-glory for their inducements. It will generally be found,
that persons who have talents for familiar writing, as these
correspondents are presumed to have, will not forbear amusing themselves
with their pens on less arduous occasions than what offer to these.
These FOUR, (whose stories have a connection with each other,) out of the
great number of characters who are introduced in this History, are only
eminent in the epistolary way: the rest appear but as occasional writers,
and as drawn in rather by necessity than choice, from the different
relations in which they stand with the four principal persons.

The length of the piece has been objected to by some, who perhaps looked
upon it as a mere novel or romance; and yet of these there are not
wanting works of equal length.

They were of opinion, that the story moved too slowly, particularly in
the first and second volumes, which are chiefly taken up with the
altercations between Clarissa and the several persons of her family.

But is it not true, that those altercations are the foundation of the
whole, and therefore a necessary part of the work? The letters and
conversations, where the story makes the slowest progress, are presumed
to be characteristic. They give occasion, likewise, to suggest many
interesting personalities, in which a good deal of the instruction
essential to a work of this nature is conveyed. And it will, moreover,
be remembered, that the author, at his first setting out, apprized the
reader, that the story (interesting as it is generally allowed to be) was
to be principally looked upon as the vehicle to the instruction.

To all which we may add, that there was frequently a necessity to be very
circumstantial and minute, in order to preserve and maintain that air of
probability, which is necessary to be maintained in a story designed to
represent real life; and which is rendered extremely busy and active by
the plots and contrivances formed and carried on by one of the principal
characters.

Some there are, and ladies too! who have supposed that the excellencies
of the heroine are carried to an improbable, and even to an
impracticable, height in this history. But the education of Clarissa,
from early childhood, ought to be considered as one of her very great
advantages; as, indeed, the foundation of all her excellencies: and, it
is to be hoped, for the sake of the doctrine designed to be inculcated by
it, that it will.

She had a pious, a well-read, a not meanly-descended woman for her nurse,
who with her milk, as Mrs. Harlowe says,* gave her that nurture which no
other nurse could give her. She was very early happy in the
conversation-visits of her learned and worthy Dr. Lewen, and in her
correspondencies, not with him only, but with other divines mentioned in
her last will. Her mother was, upon the whole, a good woman, who did
credit to her birth and fortune; and both delighted in her for those
improvements and attainments which gave her, and them in her, a
distinction that caused it to be said, that when she was out of the
family it was considered but as a common family.** She was, moreover, a
country lady; and, as we have seen in Miss Howe's character of her,***
took great delight in rural and household employments; though qualified
to adorn the brightest circle.

* See Vol. IV. Letter XXVIII.
** See her mother's praises of her to Mrs. Norton, Vol. I. Letter XXXIX.
*** See Letter LV. of this volume.

It must be confessed that we are not to look for Clarissa's name among
the constant frequenters of Ranelagh and Vauxhall, nor among those who
may be called Daughters of the card-table. If we do, the character of
our heroine may then, indeed, only be justly thought not improbable, but
unattainable. But we have neither room in this place, nor inclination,
to pursue a subject so invidious. We quit it, therefore, after we have
repeated that we know there are some, and we hope there are many, in the
British dominions, (or they are hardly any where in the European world,)
who, as far as occasion has called upon them to exert the like humble and
modest, yet steady and useful, virtues, have reached the perfections of a
Clarissa.

Having thus briefly taken notice of the most material objections that
have been made to different parts of this history, it is hoped we may be
allowed to add, that had we thought ourselves at liberty to give copies
of some of the many letters that have been written on the other side of
the question, that is to say, in approbation of the catastrophe, and of
the general conduct and execution of the work, by some of the most
eminent judges of composition in every branch of literature; most of what
has been written in this Postscript might have been spared.

But as the principal objection with many has lain against the length of
the piece, we shall add to what we have said above on that subject, in
the words of one of those eminent writers: 'That if, in the history
before us, it shall be found that the spirit is duly diffused throughout;
that the characters are various and natural; well distinguished and
uniformly supported and maintained; if there be a variety of incidents
sufficient to excite attention, and those so conducted as to keep the
reader always awake! the length then must add proportionably to the
pleasure that every person of taste receives from a well-drawn picture
of nature. But where the contrary of all these qualities shock the
understanding, the extravagant performance will be judged tedious, though
no longer than a fairy-tale.'

FINIS

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