tter enemies--to supple to them, or if I do not, to
make her as unhappy as she can be from my attempts----

Then does she not love them too much, me too little?

She now seems to despise me: Miss Howe declares, that she really does
despise me. To be despised by a WIFE--What a thought is that!--To be
excelled by a WIFE too, in every part of praise-worthy knowledge!--To
take lessons, to take instructions, from a WIFE!--More than despise me,
she herself has taken time to consider whether she does not hate me:--
I hate you, Lovelace, with my whole heart, said she to me but yesterday!
My soul is above thee, man!--Urge me not to tell thee how sincerely I
think my soul above thee!--How poor indeed was I then, even in my own
heart!--So visible a superiority, to so proud a spirit as mine!--And here
from below, from BELOW indeed! from these women! I am so goaded on----

Yet 'tis poor too, to think myself a machine in the hands of such
wretches.--I am no machine.--Lovelace, thou art base to thyself, but to
suppose thyself a machine.

But having gone thus far, I should be unhappy, if after marriage, in the
petulance of ill humour, I had it to reproach myself, that I did not try
her to the utmost. And yet I don't know how it is, but this lady, the
moment I come into her presence, half-assimilates me to her own virtue.--
Once or twice (to say nothing of her triumph over me on Sunday night) I
was prevailed upon to fluster myself, with an intention to make some
advances, which, if obliged to recede, I might lay upon raised spirits:
but the instant I beheld her, I was soberized into awe and reverence: and
the majesty of her even visible purity first damped, and then extinguished,
my double flame.

What a surprisingly powerful effect, so much and so long in my power she!
so instigated by some of her own sex, and so stimulated by passion I!--
How can this be accounted for in a Lovelace!

But what a heap of stuff have I written!--How have I been run away with!
--By what?--Canst thou say by what?--O thou lurking varletess CONSCIENCE!
--Is it thou that hast thus made me of party against myself?--How camest
thou in?--In what disguise, thou egregious haunter of my more agreeable
hours?--Stand thou, with fate, but neuter in this controversy; and, if I
cannot do credit to human nature, and to the female sex, by bringing down
such an angel as this to class with and adorn it, (for adorn it she does
in her very foibles,) then I am all your