a man born for intrigue, full
of invention, intrepid, remorseless, able patiently to watch for thy
opportunity, not hurried, as most men, by gusts of violent passion,
which often nip a project in the bud, and make the snail, that was just
putting out his horns to meet the inviter, withdraw into its shell--a
man who has no regard to his word or oath to the sex; the lady
scrupulously strict to her word, incapable of art or design; apt
therefore to believe well of others--it would be a miracle if she stood
such an attempter, such attempts, and such snares, as I see will be
laid for her. And, after all, I see not when men are so frail without
importunity, that so much should be expected from women, daughters of
the same fathers and mothers, and made up of the same brittle compounds,
(education all the difference,) nor where the triumph is in subduing
them.

May there not be other Lovelaces, thou askest, who, attracted by her
beauty, may endeavour to prevail with her?*

* See Letter XVIII. of this volume.

No; there cannot, I answer, be such another man, person, mind, fortune,
and thy character, as above given, taken in. If thou imaginest there
could, such is thy pride, that thou wouldst think the worse of thyself.

But let me touch upon thy predominant passion, revenge; for love is but
second to that, as I have often told thee, though it has set thee into
raving at me: what poor pretences for revenge are the difficulties thou
hadst in getting her off; allowing that she had run a risque of being
Solmes's wife, had she staid? If these are other than pretences, why
thankest thou not those who, by their persecutions of her, answered thy
hopes, and threw her into thy power?--Besides, are not the pretences
thou makest for further trial, most ungratefully, as well as
contradictorily founded upon the supposition of error in her, occasioned
by her favour to thee?

And let me, for the utter confusion of thy poor pleas of this nature,
ask thee--Would she, in thy opinion, had she willingly gone off with
thee, have been entitled to better quarter?--For a mistress indeed she
might: but how wouldst thou for a wife have had cause to like her half
so well as now?

Has she not demonstrated, that even the highest provocations were not
sufficient to warp her from her duty to her parents, though a native,
and, as I may say, an originally involuntary duty, because native? And
is not this a charming earnest that she will sacredly