iness,
or misery for life the consequence to both?

My best wishes will for ever attend the dear, the ever-dear lady! may
her nuptials be happy! they must be so, if she marry the man she can
honour with her love. Yet I will say, that whoever be the happy, the
thrice-happy man, he can never love her with a passion more ardent and
more sincere than mine.

Accept, dear Madam, of my most grateful thanks for a distinction that
has been the only support of my presumption in an address I am obliged,
as utterly hopeless, to discontinue. A distinction, on which (and not
on my own merits) I had entirely relied; but which, I find, can avail me
nothing. To the last hour of my life, it will give me pleasure to think,
that had your favour, your recommendation, been of sufficient weight to
conquer what seems to be an invincible aversion, I had been the happiest
of men.

I am, dear Madam, with inviolable respect, your ever obliged and
faithful humble servant, CHARLES HICKMAN.

LETTER XXIII

MRS. HOWE, TO CHARLES HICKMAN, ESQ. THURSDAY, MARCH 30.

I cannot but say, Mr. Hickman, but you have cause to be dissatisfied--to
be out of humour--to be displeased--with Nancy--but, upon my word; but
indeed--What shall I say?--Yet this I will say, that you good young
gentlemen know nothing at all of our sex. Shall I tell you--but why
should I? And yet I will, that if Nancy did not think well of you upon
the main, she is too generous to treat you so freely as she does.--Don't
you think she has courage enough to tell me, she would not see you, and
to refuse at any time seeing you, as she knows on what account you come,
if she had not something in her head favourable to you?--Fie! that I am
forced to say thus much in writing, when I have hinted it to you twenty
and twenty times by word of mouth!

But if you are so indifferent, Mr. Hickman--if you think you can part
with her for her skittish tricks--if my interest in your favour--Why,
Mr. Hickman, I must tell you that my Nancy is worth bearing with. If she
be foolish--what is that owing to?--Is it not to her wit? Let me tell
you, Sir, you cannot have the convenience without the inconvenience.
What workman loves not a sharp tool to work with? But is there not more
danger from a sharp tool than from a blunt one? And what workman will
throw away a sharp tool, because it may cut his fingers? Wit may be
likened to a sharp tool. And there is something very pretty in wit, let
me tell you. Oft