ABSTRACT
In the aristocratic world such a low estimation of marriage continues to predominate and this is entirely in harmony with the general acceptance of the hedonist view of life and with that contempt for women which the Cavalier contrived to unite with an extreme outward courtesy towards them. Actually the crossing of the bourgeois conscience with aristocratic forms of life appears to Samuel Richardson most likely to realize the highest ideal of human personality. Such, no doubt, were the views amidst which Richardson grew up, for his family came from the lesser bourgeoisie. The moral periodicals’ family propaganda contrasts sharply with that of the Puritan teachers by the largeness of heart which causes it to lay such stress on purely human factors. This essentially humane attitude is something very different from the Puritan’s narrow system of ideas.
