say, to transcribe all that was worthy of
my resentment in this letter: so I must find an opportunity to come at it
myself. Noble rant, they say, it contains--But I am a seducer, and a
hundred vile fellows, in it.--'And the devil, it seems, took possession
of my heart, and of the hearts of all her friends, in the same dark hour,
in order to provoke her to meet me.' Again, 'There is a fate in her
error,' she says--Why then should she grieve?--'Adversity is her shining
time,' and I can't tell what; yet never to thank the man to whom she owes
the shine!

In the next letter,* wicked as I am, 'she fears I must be her lord and
master.'

* See Letter XXIX. of this volume.

I hope so.

She retracts what she said against me in her last.--My behaviour to my
Rosebud; Miss Harlowe to take possession of Mrs. Fretchville's house; I
to stay at Mrs. Sinclair's; the stake I have in my country; my
reversions; my economy; my person; my address; [something like in all
this!] are brought in my favour, to induce her now not to leave me. How
do I love to puzzle these long-sighted girls!

Yet 'my teasing ways,' it seems, 'are intolerable.'--Are women only to
tease, I trow? The sex may thank themselves for teaching me to out-tease
them. So the headstrong Charles XII. of Sweden taught the Czar Peter to
beat him, by continuing a war with the Muscovites against the ancient
maxims of his kingdom.

'May eternal vengeance PURSUE the villain, [thank heaven, she does not
say overtake,] if he give room to doubt his honour!'--Women can't swear,
Jack--sweet souls! they can only curse.

I am said, to doubt her love--Have I not reason? And she, to doubt my
ardour--Ardour, Jack!--why, 'tis very right--women, as Miss Howe says,
and as every rake knows, love ardours!

She apprizes her, of the 'ill success of the application made to her
uncle.'--By Hickman no doubt!--I must have this fellow's ears in my
pocket, very quickly I believe.

She says, 'she is equally shocked and enraged against all her family:
Mrs. Norton's weight has been tried upon Mrs. Harlowe, as well as Mr.
Hickman's upon the uncle: but never were there,' says the vixen, 'such
determined brutes in the world. Her uncle concludes her ruined already.'
Is not that a call upon me, as well as a reproach?--'They all expected
applications from her when in distress--but were resolved not to stir an
inch to save her life.' Miss Howe 'is concerned,' she tells her, 'for
the revenge m