But what a pretty fellow of an uncle is this foolish peer, to think of making a wife independent of her emperor, and a rebel of course; yet smarted himself for an error of this kind!

My beloved, in her torn paper, mentions but two hundred pounds a year, for her separate use.  I insisted upon her naming a larger sum.  She said it might be three; and I, for fear she should suspect very large offers, named only five; but added the entire disposal of all arrears in her father’s hands for the benefit of Mrs. Norton, or whom she pleased.

She said, that the good woman would be uneasy if any thing more than a competency were done for her.  She was more for suiting all her dispositions of this kind, she said, to the usual way of life of the person.  To go beyond it, was but to put the benefited upon projects, or to make them awkward in a new state; when they might shine in that to which they were accustomed.  And to put it into so good a mother’s power to give her son a beginning in his business at a proper time; yet to leave her something for herself, to set her above want, or above the necessity of taking back from her child what she had been enabled to bestow upon him; would be the height of such a worthy parent’s ambition.

Here’s prudence!  Here’s judgment in so young a creature!  How do I hate the Harlowes for producing such an angel!—­O why, why, did she refuse my sincere address to tie the knot before we came to this house!

But yet, what mortifies my pride is, that this exalted creature, if I were to marry her, would not be governed in her behaviour to me by love, but by generosity merely, or by blind duty; and had rather live single, than be mine.

I cannot bear this.  I would have the woman whom I honour with my name, if ever I confer this honour upon any, forego even her superior duties for me.  I would have her look after me when I go out as far as she can see me, as my Rosebud after her Johnny; and meet me at my return with rapture.  I would be the subject of her dreams, as well as of her waking thoughts.  I would have her think every moment lost that is not passed with me:  sing to me, read to me, play to me when I pleased:  no joy so great as in obeying me.  When I should be inclined to love, overwhelm me with it; when to be serious or solitary, if apprehensive of intrusion, retiring at a nod; approaching me only if I smiled encouragement:  steal into my presence with silence; out of it, if not noticed, on tiptoe.  Be a lady easy to all my pleasures, and valuing those most who most contributed to them; only sighing in private, that it was not herself at the time.  Thus of old did the contending wives of the honest patriarchs; each recommending her handmaid to her lord, as she thought it would oblige him, and looking upon the genial product as her own.

The gentle Waller says, women are born to be controuled.  Gentle as he was, he knew that.  A tyrant husband makes a dutiful wife.  And why do the sex love rakes, but because they know how to direct their uncertain wills, and manage them?