Clarissa - Softcover

Reseña del editor

Excerpt: ...dangerous of Men; and that makes all the Remainder of her Life Pg 11 melancholy and distressed. This is the Lesson: And if it be a good one, the Force of it ought not to be weakened by her Recovering from all her Distresses, and growing quite happy again; which indeed would not only weaken, but intirely take away, all the Force that was intended to be given to it. Yet if Clarissa be unfortunate, she is not miserable. She preserved her Innocence thro' all her Trials, after that one false Step: When she had no Comfort to expect in this World, she turns her Hopes and Confidence toward Heaven: Her Afflictions are soon ended, for the Course of this whole Affair (taking it from the very Beginning) is included within the Bounds of one Year: And she departs with Pleasure from a Life full of Trouble, to be rewarded without End. So that, tho' we are warned by Clarissa's Example, we have no Reason to be concerned at her Dissolution: Much more noble, and more to be admired, in her Steadiness, and just Conduct, then, than when she was caressed by all her Relations, in the Bloom of her unviolated Innocence, and busied in all the little endearing Offices of her good Nature, and good Sense. / / 12 All the Objections to the Design and Conduct of the History of Clarissa, which have seemed to carry any Weight in them, being, we presume, obviated in the PS. to this Work, we apprehend it will be only expected from us, on this Second Publication, that we exhibit some Particulars, which may help to shew the superiority of its Moral to any of the Morals of those Works of Invention, which have been offered to the Public under the Name of Novel, or Romance. Now what a Romance usually professes to entertain us with, may be considered under Three General Heads; Ridicule; or, Serious Adventures; or, lastly, a Mixture of both. It must be owned, that there are some Works under the First of these Heads, which have their Excellencies; Tho' we may be permitted to doubt,...