trial?--No one is to blame for suffering an evil he
cannot shun or avoid.

Were a general to be overpowered, and robbed by a highwayman, would he be
less fit for the command of an army on that account?--If indeed the
general, pretending great valour, and having boasted that he never would
be robbed, were to make but faint resistance when he was brought to the
test, and to yield his purse when he was master of his own sword, then
indeed will the highwayman who robs him be thought the braver man.

But from these last conferences am I furnished with one argument in
defence of my favourite purpose, which I never yet pleaded.

O Jack! what a difficulty must a man be allowed to have to conquer a
predominant passion, be it what it will, when the gratifying of it is in
his power, however wrong he knows it to be to resolve to gratify it!
Reflect upon this; and then wilt thou be able to account for, if not to
excuse, a projected crime, which has habit to plead for it, in a breast
as stormy as uncontroulable!

This that follows is my new argument--

Should she fail in the trial; should I succeed; and should she refuse to
go on with me; and even resolve not to marry me (of which I can have no
notion); and should she disdain to be obliged to me for the handsome
provision I should be proud to make for her, even to the half of my
estate; yet cannot she be altogether unhappy--Is she not entitled to an
independent fortune? Will not Col. Morden, as her trustee, put her in
possession of it? And did she not in our former conference point out the
way of life, that she always preferred to the married life--to wit, 'To
take her good Norton for her directress and guide, and to live upon her
own estate in the manner her grandfather desired she should live?'*

* See Letter III. of this volume.

It is moreover to be considered that she cannot, according to her own
notions, recover above one half of her fame, were we not to intermarry;
so much does she think she has suffered by her going off with me. And
will she not be always repining and mourning for the loss of the other
half?--And if she must live a life of such uneasiness and regret for
half, may she not as well repine and mourn for the whole?

Nor, let me tell thee, will her own scheme or penitence, in this case, be
half so perfect, if she do not fall, as if she does: for what a foolish
penitent will she make, who has nothing to repent of!--She piques
herself, thou knowest, a