The lady tells Dorcas, that her heart is broken:  and that she shall live but a little while.  I think nothing of that, if we marry.  In the first place, she knows not what a mind unapprehensive will do for her, in a state to which all the sex look forwards with high satisfaction.  How often have the whole of the sacred conclave been thus deceived in their choice of a pope; not considering that the new dignity is of itself sufficient to give new life!  A few months’ heart’s ease will give my charmer a quite different notion of things:  and I dare say, as I have heretofore said,* once married, and I am married for life.

* See Letter IX. of this volume.

I will allow that her pride, in one sense, has suffered abasement:  but her triumph is the greater in every other.  And while I can think that all her trials are but additions to her honour, and that I have laid the foundations of her glory in my own shame, can I be called cruel, if I am not affected with her grief as some men would be?

And for what should her heart be broken?  Her will is unviolated;—­at present, however, her will is unviolated.  The destroying of good habits, and the introducing of bad, to the corrupting of the whole heart, is the violation.  That her will is not to be corrupted, that her mind is not to be debased, she has hitherto unquestionably proved.  And if she give cause for farther trials, and hold fast her integrity, what ideas will she have to dwell upon, that will be able to corrupt her morals?  What vestigia, what remembrances, but such as will inspire abhorrence of the attempter?

What nonsense then to suppose that such a mere notional violation as she has suffered should be able to cut asunder the strings of life?

Her religion, married, or not married, will set her above making such a trifling accident, such an involuntary suffering fatal to her.

Such considerations as these they are that support me against all apprehensions of bugbear consequences; and I would have them have weight with thee; who are such a doughty advocate for her.  And yet I allow thee this; that she really makes too much of it; takes it too much to heart.  To be sure she ought to have forgot it by this time, except the charming, charming consequence happen, that still I am in hopes will happen, were I to proceed no farther.  And, if she apprehended this herself, then has the dear over-nice soul some reason for taking it so much to heart; and yet would not, I think, refuse to legitimate.

O Jack! had I am imperial diadem, I swear to thee, that I would give it up, even to my enemy, to have one charming boy by this lady.  And should she escape me, and no such effect follow, my revenge on her family, and, in such a case, on herself, would be incomplete, and I should reproach myself as long as I lived.

Were I to be sure that this foundation is laid [And why may I not hope it is?] I should not doubt to have her still (should she withstand her day of grace) on my own conditions; nor should I, if it were so, question that revived affection in her, which a woman seldom fails to have for the father of her first child, whether born in wedlock, or out of it.