The Value of Virtue Theme Analysis

Dear Father and Mother,

I have great Trouble, and some Comfort, to acquaint you with. The Trouble is, that my good Lady died of the Illness I mention’d to you, and left us all much griev’d for the loss of her; for she was a dear good lady, and kind to all us her servants.

I hope the good ’Squire has no Design: but when he has given you so much Money, and speaks so kindly to you, and praises your coming on; and, Oh, that fatal word! that he would be kind to you, if you would do as you should do, almost kills us with fears.

JOHN being to go your way, I am willing to write, because he is so willing to carry any thing for me. He says it does him good at his Heart to see you both, and to hear you talk. He says you are both so sensible, and so honest, that he always learns something from you to the Purpose.

I sobb’d and cry’d most sadly. What a foolish Hussy you are! said he: Have I done you any Harm? Yes, Sir, said I, the greatest Harm in the world: You have taught me to forget myself and what belongs to me, and have lessen’d the Distance that Fortune has made between us, by demeaning yourself, to be so free to a poor Servant.

Say no more, Mrs. Jervis; for by G—d I will have her!

Their Riches often are a Snare;
At best, a pamper’d weighty Care:
Their Servants far more happy are:
At least, so thinketh Pamela.

Now I will give you a Picture of this Wretch: She is a broad, squat, pursy, fat thing, quite ugly, if any thing God made can be so called; about forty Years old. She has a huge Hand, and an Arm as thick as my Waist, I believe. […] So that with a Heart more ugly than her Face, she frightens me sadly: and I am undone to be sure, if God does not protect me; for she is very, very wicked—indeed she is.

This Act of Despondency, thought I, is a Sin, that, if I pursue it, admits of no Repentance, and can therefore claim no Forgiveness.—And wilt thou, to shorten thy transitory Griefs, heavy as they are, and weak as thou fanciest thyself, plunge both Body and Soul into everlasting Misery! Hitherto, Pamela, thought I, thou art the innocent, the suffering Pamela; and wilt thou, to avoid thy sufferings, be the guilty Aggressor? And, because wicked Men persecute thee, wilt thou fly in the Face of the Almighty, and distrust his Grace and Goodness, who can still turn all these Sufferings to Benefits?

Your poor Pamela cannot answer for the Liberties taken with her in her deplorable State of Death.

IF, my dear Parents, I am not destin’d more surely than ever for Ruin, I have now more Comfort before me, than ever I yet knew. And am either nearer my Happiness or my Misery than ever I was.

Since you so much prize your Honour, and your Virtue; since all Attempts against that are so odious to you; and since I have avowedly made several of these Attempts, do you think it is possible for you to love me preferably to any other of my Sex?

Besides, said he, there is such a pretty air of romance, as you relate them, in your plots, and my plots, that I shall be better directed in what manner to wind up the catastrophe of the pretty novel.

My master kindly said, Come, Mr. Andrews, you and I will sit together. And so took his Place at the Bottom of the Table, and set my Father on his Right-hand; and Sir Simon would sit on his Left.

And thus, my dearest, dear Parents, is your happy, happy, thrice happy Pamela, at last, marry’d; and to who?—Why, to her beloved, gracious Master! The Lord of her Wishes!—And thus the dear, once naughty Assailer of her Innocence, by a blessed Turn of Providence, is become the kind, the generous Protector and Rewarder of it.

Oh! What a poor thing is human Life in its best Enjoyments!—subjected to imaginary Evils, when it has no real ones to disturb it!

Are all so many signal Instances of the Excellency of her mind, which may make her Character worthy of the Imitation of her Sex. And the Editor of these Sheets will have his End, if it inspires a laudable Emulation in the Minds of any worthy persons, who may thereby entitle themselves to the Rewards, the Praises, and the Blessings, by which she was so deservedly distinguished.