Many Persons readier to find fault with a supposed perfect Character, than to try to imitate it: To bring it down to their Level, rather than to rise to it.
Clarissa an Example to the Reader: The Example not to be taken from the Reader.
Obj. II. Lovelace could not be so generous, and so wicked. Common Experience confutes this Objection.
Obj. III. There could not be such a Tyrant of a Father: Such an insolent and brutal Brother: Such an unrelenting Sister: Such a passive Mother—Every-body is not of this Opinion. It were to be wished, that this Objection were unanswerable.
Obj. IV. The History is too minute. Its Minuteness one of its Excellencies.
[5]
Attentive Readers have found, and will find, that the Probability of all Stories told, or of Narrations given, depends upon small Circumstances; as may be observed, that in all Tryals for Life and Property, the/ /Merits of the Cause are more determinable by such, than by the greater Facts; which usually are so laid, and taken care of, as to seem to authenticate themselves.
Cannot consent, that the History of Clarissa should be looked upon as a mere Novel or Amusement—since it is rather a History of Life and Manners; the principal View of which, by an Accommodation to the present light Taste of an Age immersed in Diversions, that engage the Eye and the Ear only, and not the Understanding, aims to investigate the great Doctrines of Christianity, and to teach the Reader how to die, as well as how to live.
Step by Step, Difficulties varied and enumerated, that young Creatures may know, that tho' they may not have all her Trials, how to comport gradatim.
If provoked and induced as she was, yet so loth to leave her Friends, and go off with her Lover, what Blame must those incur, who take such a Step, and have not her Provocations and Inducements!