in Impatiences and Fevers; but still you say it will be Time enough,
tho I and you too grow older while we are yet talking. Which do you
think the more reasonable, that you should alter a State of
Indifference for Happiness, and that to oblige me, or I live in
Torment, and that to lay no Manner of Obligation upon you? While I
indulge your Insensibility I am doing nothing; if you favour my
Passion, you are bestowing bright Desires, gay Hopes, generous
Cares, noble Resolutions and transporting Raptures upon, _Madam,_

_Your most devoted humble Servant._

_Mr_. SPECTATOR,

Here's a Gentlewoman lodges in the same House with me, that I never
did any Injury to in my whole Life; and she is always railing at me to
those that she knows will tell me of it. Don't you think she is in
Love with me? or would you have me break my Mind yet or not? _Your
Servant,_ T. B.

_Mr._ SPECTATOR,

I am a Footman in a great Family, and am in Love with the House-maid.
We were all at Hot-cockles last Night in the Hall these Holidays; when
I lay down and was blinded, she pulled off her Shoe, and hit me with
the Heel such a Rap, as almost broke my Head to Pieces. Pray, Sir, was
this Love or Spite?

T.

* * * * *

No. 261. Saturday. December 29, 1711. Addison.

[Greek: Gamos gar anphropoisin euktaion kakon].

Frag. Vet. Poet.

My Father, whom I mentioned in my first Speculation, and whom I must
always name with Honour and Gratitude, has very frequently talked to me
upon the Subject of Marriage. I was in my younger Years engaged, partly
by his Advice, and partly by my own Inclinations in the Courtship of a
Person who had a great deal of Beauty, and did not at my first
Approaches seem to have any Aversion to me; but as my natural
Taciturnity hindred me from showing my self to the best Advantage, she
by degrees began to look upon me as a very silly Fellow, and being
resolved to regard Merit more than any Thing else in the Persons who
made their Applications to her, she married a Captain of Dragoons who
happened to be beating up for Recruits in those Parts.

This unlucky Accident has given me an Aversion to pretty Fellows ever
since, and discouraged me from trying my Fortune with the Fair Sex. The
Observations which I made in this Conjuncture, and the repeated Advices
which I received at