Nor, my dear, whatever are the suppositions of such a short-sighted, such a low-souled man, must you impute to gloom, to melancholy, to despondency, nor yet to a spirit of faulty pride, or still more faulty revenge, the resolution I have taken never to marry this:  and if not this, any man.  So far from deserving this imputation, I do assure you, (my dear and only love,) that I will do every thing I can to prolong my life, till God, in mercy to me, shall be pleased to call for it.  I have reason to think my punishment is but the due consequence of my fault, and I will not run away from it; but beg of Heaven to sanctify it to me.  When appetite serves, I will eat and drink what is sufficient to support nature.  A very little, you know, will do for that.  And whatever my physicians shall think fit to prescribe, I will take, though ever so disagreeable.  In short, I will do every thing I can do to convince all my friends, who hereafter may think it worth their while to inquire after my last behaviour, that I possessed my soul with tolerable patience; and endeavoured to bear with a lot of my own drawing; for thus, in humble imitation of the sublimest exemplar, I often say:—­Lord, it is thy will; and it shall be mine.  Thou art just in all thy dealings with the children of men; and I know thou wilt not afflict me beyond what I can bear:  and, if I can bear it, I ought to bear it; and (thy grace assisting me) I will bear it.

’But here, my dear, is another reason; a reason that will convince you yourself that I ought not to think of wedlock; but of a preparation for a quite different event.  I am persuaded, as much as that I am now alive, that I shall not long live.  The strong sense I have ever had of my fault, the loss of my reputation, my disappointments, the determined resentment of my friends, aiding the barbarous usage I have met with where I least deserved it, have seized upon my heart:  seized upon it, before it was so well fortified by religious considerations as I hope it now is.  Don’t be concerned, my dear—­But I am sure, if I may say it with as little presumption as grief, That God will soon dissolve my substance; and bring me to death, and to the house appointed for all living.’

And now, my dearest friend, you know all my mind.  And you will be pleased to write to the ladies of Mr. Lovelace’s family, that I think myself infinitely obliged to them for their good opinion of me; and that it has given me greater pleasure than I thought I had to come in this life, that, upon the little knowledge they have of me, and that not personal, I was thought worthy (after the ill usage I have received) of an alliance with their honourable family:  but that I can by no means think of their kinsman for a husband:  and do you, my dear, extract from the above such reasons as you think have any weight with them.

I would write myself to acknowledge their favour, had I not more employment for my head, my heart, and my fingers, than I doubt they will be able to go through.