ey cannot approve.

They had not reason, it seems, from your behaviour, to think you greatly
averse: so they proceeded: perhaps too hastily for a delicacy like
your's. But when all was fixed on their parts, and most extraordinary
terms concluded in your favour; terms, which abundantly show the
gentleman's just value for you; you flew off with a warmth and vehemence
little suited to that sweetness which gave grace to all your actions.

I know very little of either of the gentlemen: but of Mr. Lovelace I know
more than of Mr. Solmes. I wish I could say more to his advantage than I
can. As to every qualification but one, your brother owns there is no
comparison. But that one outweighs all the rest together. It cannot be
thought that Miss Clarissa Harlowe will dispense with MORALS in a
husband.

What, my dearest cousin, shall I plead first to you on this occasion?
Your duty, your interest, your temporal and your eternal welfare, do, and
may all, depend upon this single point, the morality of a husband. A
woman who hath a wicked husband may find it difficult to be good, and out
of her power to do good; and is therefore in a worse situation than the
man can be in, who hath a bad wife. You preserve all your religious
regards, I understand. I wonder not that you do. I should have wondered
had you not. But what can you promise youself, as to perseverance in
them, with an immoral husband?

If your parents and you differ in sentiment on this important occasion,
let me ask you, my dear cousin, who ought to give way? I own to you,
that I should have thought there could not any where have been a more
suitable match for you than Mr. Lovelace, had he been a moral man. I
should have very little to say against a man, of whose actions I am not
to set up myself as a judge, did he not address my cousin. But, on this
occasion, let me tell you, my dear Clarissa, that Mr. Lovelace cannot
possibly deserve you. He may reform, you'll say: but he may not. Habit
is not soon or easily shaken off. Libertines, who are libertines in
defiance of talents, of superior lights, of conviction, hardly ever
reform but by miracle, or by incapacity. Well do I know mine own sex.
Well am I able to judge of the probability of the reformation of a
licentious young man, who has not been fastened upon by sickness, by
affliction, by calamity: who has a prosperous run of fortune before him:
his spirits high: his will uncontroulable: the company he ke