I have just read over again this intended answer to my proposals:  and how I adore her for it!

But yet; another yet!—­She has not given it or sent it to me.—­It is not therefore her answer.  It is not written for me, though to me.

Nay, she has not intended to send it to me:  she has even torn it, perhaps with indignation, as thinking it too good for me.  By this action she absolutely retracts it.  Why then does my foolish fondness seek to establish for her the same merit in my heart, as if she avowed it?  Pr’ythee, dear Belford, once more, leave us to our fate; and do not thou interpose with thy nonsense, to weaken a spirit already too squeamish, and strengthen a conscience that has declared itself of her party.

Then again, remember thy recent discoveries, Lovelace!  Remember her indifference, attended with all the appearance of contempt and hatred.  View her, even now, wrapt up in reserve and mystery; meditating plots, as far as thou knowest, against the sovereignty thou hast, by right of conquest, obtained over her.  Remember, in short, all thou hast threatened to remember against this insolent beauty, who is a rebel to the power she has listed under.

But yet, how dost thou propose to subdue thy sweet enemy!—­Abhorred be force, be the necessity of force, if that can be avoided!  There is no triumph in force—­no conquest over the will—­no prevailing by gentle degrees over the gentle passions!—­force is the devil!

My cursed character, as I have often said, was against me at setting out —­Yet is she not a woman?  Cannot I find one yielding or but half-yielding moment, if she do not absolutely hate me?

But with what can I tempt her?—­Riches she was born to, and despises, knowing what they are.  Jewels and ornaments, to a mind so much a jewel, and so richly set, her worthy consciousness will not let her value.  Love —­if she be susceptible of love, it seems to be so much under the direction of prudence, that one unguarded moment, I fear, cannot be reasonably hoped for:  and so much vigilance, so much apprehensiveness, that her fears are ever aforehand with her dangers.  Then her love or virtue seems to be principle, native principle, or, if not native, so deeply rooted, that its fibres have struck into her heart, and, as she grew up, so blended and twisted themselves with the strings of life, that I doubt there is no separating of the one without cutting the others asunder.

What then can be done to make such a matchless creature get over the first tests, in order to put her to the grand proof, whether once overcome, she will not be always overcome?