Clarissa, Volume 6

Book Excerpt: ...edulous rogue taken in for a justification of their preachments, and to serve as a beacon lighted up for the benefit of the rest?Do we not then see, that an honest prowling fellow is a necessary evil on many accounts? Do we not see that it is highly requisite that a sweet girl should be now-and-then drawn aside by him?--And the more eminent the girl, in the graces of person, mind, and fortune, is not the example likely to be the more efficacious?If these postulata be granted me, who, I pray, can equal my charmer in all these? Who therefore so fit for an example to the rest of her sex? --At worst, I am entirely within my worthy friend Mandeville's assertion, that private vices are public benefits. Well, then, if this sweet creature must fall, as it is called, for the benefit of all the pretty fools of the sex, she must; and there's an end of the matter. And what would there have been in it of uncommon or rare, had I not been so long about it?--And so I dismiss all further argumentation and debateClose...