y, a passion
without rubs; in other words, a passion without passion; is like a
sleepy stream that is hardly seen to give motion to a straw. So that,
sometimes to make us fear, and even, for a short space, to hate the
wretch, is productive of the contrary extreme.

If this be so, Lovelace, than whom no man was ever more polite and
obsequious at the beginning, has hit the very point. For his turbulence
since, his readiness to offend, and his equal readiness to humble
himself, (as must keep a woman's passion alive); and at last tire her
into a non-resistance that shall make her as passive as a tyrant-husband
would wish her to be.

I verily think, that the different behaviour of our two heroes to
their heroines make out this doctrine to demonstration. I am so much
accustomed, for my own part, to Hickman's whining, creeping, submissive
courtship, that I now expect nothing but whine and cringe from him: and
am so little moved with his nonsense, that I am frequently forced to go
to my harpsichord, to keep me awake, and to silence his humdrum. Whereas
Lovelace keeps up the ball with a witness, and all his address and
conversation is one continual game at raquet.

Your frequent quarrels and reconciliations verify this observation: and
I really believe, that, could Hickman have kept my attention alive after
the Lovelace manner, only that he had preserved his morals, I should
have married the man by this time. But then he must have set out
accordingly. For now he can never, never recover himself, that's
certain; but must be a dangler to the end of the courtship-chapter; and,
what is still worse for him, a passive to the end of his life.

Poor Hickman! perhaps you'll say.

I have been called your echo--Poor Hickman! say I.

You wonder, my dear, that Mr. Lovelace took not notice to you over-night
of the letters of Lady Betty and his cousin. I don't like his keeping
such a material and relative circumstance, as I may call it, one moment
from you. By his communicating the contents of them to you next day,
when you was angry with him, it looks as if he withheld them for
occasional pacifiers; and if so, must he not have had a forethought that
he might give you cause for anger? Of all the circumstances that have
happened since you have been with him, I think I like this the least:
this alone, my dear, small as it might look to an indifferent eye, in
mine warrants all your caution. Yet I think that Mrs. Greme's letter to
her siste