Letter 50 Commentary

Letter 50 is a series of letters exchanged between Clarissa and her brother James that Clarissa sends to Anna to read. James sends Clarissa to her Uncle Antony’s, in order to stop her communication with Anna and “somebody else”, who is presumably Lovelace. James also sends her to their uncle’s house so she will be forced to take visits with Solmes, since she refuses to do so at home.  After her visit with Solmes, James wants Clarissa to explain to her friends that “Virgil’s amor omnibus idem. . . is verified” in her. Taken from Virgil’s Georgics III written in 1693, “amor omnibus idem” is “the force of love in all creatures” (barnesandnoble.com). In her commentary on the letter to Anna, Clarissa takes offense to his use of Virgil’s words to set her up. James will only allow family to see Clarissa, though he warns that they do not want to see her and hear her “whining vocatives”. She is also greatly offended by that comment.

Clarissa offends James back, when she taunts him about his “pedantry” in quoting Virgil. She is quite obviously insinuating that he lacks sophistication and intelligence. She tells him that if humanity were in the curriculum at his school, “it has not found a genius in you for mastering it”. Clarissa makes a valid point, since he is not treating his own blood like a human being. She also proposes that if he were to find a husband for her, she should be able to choose his wife. It is quite a daring proposal, being that (at the time) she is of the “lesser sex”.

Clarissa closes her response by telling James that she will not accept his letters unless “an authority I never will dispute” (i.e. her father) forces her into reading his letters. She wonders what she ever did to deserve his horrid treatment towards and closes it as his “injured sister”.