LETTER XXIV
THE REV. DR. LEWEN, TO MISS CL. HARLOWEFRIDAY, AUG. 18.
Presuming, dearest and ever-respectable young lady, upon your formerfavour, and upon your opinion of my judgment and sincerity, I cannot helpaddressing you by a few lines on your present unhappy situation.
I will not look back upon the measures into which you have either beenled or driven. But will only say as to those, that I think you are theleast to blame of any young lady that was ever reduced from happy tounhappy circumstances; and I have not been wanting to say as much, whereI hoped my freedom would have been better received than I have had themortification to find it to be.
What I principally write for now is, to put you upon doing a piece ofjustice to yourself, and to your sex, in the prosecuting for his life (Iam assured his life is in your power) the most profligate and abandonedof men, as he must be, who could act so basely, as I understand Mr.Lovelace has acted by you.
I am very ill; and am now forced to write upon my pillow; my thoughtsconfused; and incapable of method: I shall not therefore aim at method:but to give you in general my opinion--and that is, that your religion,your duty to your family, the duty you owe to your honour, and evencharity to your sex, oblige you to give public evidence against this verywicked man.
And let me add another consideration: The prevention, by this means, ofthe mischiefs that may otherwise happen between your brother and Mr.Lovelace, or between the latter and your cousin Morden, who is now, Ihear, arrived, and resolves to have justice done you.
A consideration which ought to affect your conscience, [forgive me,dearest young lady, I think I am now in the way of my duty;] and to beof more concern to you, than that hard pressure upon your modesty whichI know the appearance against him in an open court must be of to such alady as you; and which, I conceive, will be your great difficulty. But Iknow, Madam, that you have dignity enough to become the blushes of themost naked truth, when necessity, justice, and honour, exact it from you.Rakes and ravishers would meet with encouragement indeed, and most fromthose who had the greatest abhorrence of their actions, if violatedmodesty were never to complain of the injury it received from thevillanous attempters of it.
In a word, the reparation of your family dishonour now rests in your ownbosom: and which only one of these two alternatives can repair; to wit,either to marry the offender, or to prosecute him at law. Bitterexpedients for a soul so delicate as your's!
He, and all his friends, I understand, solicit you to the first: and itis certainly, now, all the amends within his power to make. But I amassured that you have rejected their solicitations, and his, with theindignation and contempt that his foul actions have deserved: but yet,that you refuse not to extend to him the christian forgiveness he has solittle reason to expect, provided he will not disturb you farther.
But, Madam, the prosecution I advise, will not let your present andfuture exemption from fresh disturbance from so vile a molester dependupon his courtesy: I should think so noble and so rightly-guided a spiritas your's would not permit that it should, if you could help it.
And can indignities of any kind be properly pardoned till we have it inour power to punish them? To pretend to pardon, while we are labouringunder the pain or dishonour of them, will be thought by some to be butthe vaunted mercy of a pusillanimous heart, trembling to resent them.The remedy I propose is a severe one: But what pain can be more severethan the injury? Or how will injuries be believed to grieve us, that arenever honourably complained of?
I am sure Miss Clarissa Harlowe, however injured and oppressed, remainsunshaken in her sentiments of honour and virtue: and although she wouldsooner die than deserve that her modesty should be drawn into question;yet she will think no truth immodest that is to be uttered in thevindicated cause of innocence and chastity. Little, very littledifference is there, my dear young lady, between a suppressed evidence,and a false one.
It is a terrible circumstance, I once more own, for a young lady of yourdelicacy to be under the obligation of telling so shocking a story inpublic court: but it is still a worse imputation, that she should passover so mortal an injury unresented.
Conscience, honour, justice, are on your side: and modesty would, bysome, be thought but an empty name, should you refuse to obey theirdictates.
I have been consulted, I own, on this subject. I have given it as myopinion, that you ought to prosecute the abandoned man--but without myreasons. These I reserved, with a resolution to lay them before youunknown to any body, that the result, if what I wish, may be your own.
I will only add that the misfortunes which have befallen you, had theybeen the lot of a child of my own, could not have affected me more thanyour's have done. My own child I love: but I both love and honour you:since to love you, is to love virtue, good sense, prudence, and everything that is good and noble in woman.
Wounded as I think all these are by the injuries you have received, youwill believe that the knowledge of your distresses must have afflicted,beyond what I am able to express,
Your sincere admirer, and humble servant,ARTHUR LEWEN.
I just now understand that your sister will, by proper authority, propose this prosecution to you. I humbly presume that the reason why you resolved not upon this step from the first, was, that you did not know that it would have the countenance and support of your relations.
Clarissa Harlowe; or the history of a young lady — Volume 8 Page 25