クラリッサ — サミュエル・リチャードソン
You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org . If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook. Title : Clarissa Harlowe; or the history of a young lady — Volume 1 Author : Samuel Richardson Release date : November 1, 2005 [eBook #9296] Most recently updated: October 14, 2021 Language : English Other information and formats : www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/9296 Credits : Julie C. Sparks and David Widger *** START OF Comprehending The most Important Concerns of Private Life. And particularly shewing, The Distresses that may attend the Misconduct Both of Parents and Children, In Relation to Marriage. PREFACE NAMES OF THE PRINCIPAL PERSONS SUMMARY OF THE LETTERS OF VOLUME I THE HISTORY OF CLARISSA HARLOWE LETTER I LETTER II LETTER III LETTER IV LETTER V LETTER VI LETTER VII LETTER VIII LETTER IX LETTER X LETTER XI LETTER XII LETTER XIII LETTER XIV LETTER XV LETTER XVI LETTER XVII LETTER XVIII LETTER XIX LETTER XX LETTER XXI LETTER XXII LETTER XXIII LETTER XXIV LETTER XXV LETTER XXVI LETTER XXVII LETTER XXVIII LETTER XXIX LETTER XXX LETTER XXXI LETTER XXXII LETTER XXXIII LETTER XXXIV LETTER XXXV LETTER XXXVI LETTER XXXVII LETTER XXXVIII LETTER XXXIX LETTER XL LETTER XLI LETTER XLII LETTER XLIII LETTER XLIV 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 principle 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 do, and carried our idea of her from woman to angel. As such is she often esteemed by the man whose heart was so corrupt that he could hardly believe human nature capable of the purity, which, on every trial or temptation, shone out in her's [sic]. Besides the four principal person, several others are introduced, whose letters are characteristic: and it is presumed that there will be found in some of them, but more especially in those of the chief character among the men, and the second character among the women, such strokes of gayety, fancy, and humour, as will entertain and divert, and at the same time both warn and instruct. All the letters are written while the hearts of the writers must be supposed to be wholly engaged in their subjects (the events at the time generally dubious): so that they abound not only in critical situations, but with what may be called instantaneous descriptions and reflections (proper to be brought home to the breast of the youthful reader;) as also with affecting conversations; many of them written in the dialogue or dramatic way. 'Much more lively and affecting,' says one of the principal character, 'must be the style of th