y, like the generality of her sex, affecting ignorance of
meanings too obvious to be concealed; but so resenting, as to show each
impudent laugher the offence given to, and taken by a purity, that had
mistaken its way, when it fell into such company.

* See Vol. IV. Letter XLVIII.

Such is the woman, such is the angel, whom thou hast betrayed into thy
power, and wouldst deceive and ruin.---Sweet creature! did she but know
how she is surrounded, (as I then thought, as well as now think,) and
what is intended, how much sooner would death be her choice, than so
dreadful a situation!--'And how effectually would her story, were it
generally known, warn all the sex against throwing themselves into the
power of ours, let our vows, oaths, and protestations, be what they
will!'

But let me beg of thee, once more, my dear Lovelace, if thou hast any
regard for thine own honour, for the honour of thy family, for thy future
peace, or for my opinion of thee, (who yet pretend not to be so much
moved by principle, as by that dazzling merit which ought still more to
attract thee,) to be prevailed upon--to be--to be humane, that's all--
only, that thou wouldst not disgrace our common humanity!

Hardened as thou art, I know that they are the abandoned people in the
house who keep thee up to a resolution against her. O that the sagacious
fair-one (with so much innocent charity in her own heart) had not so
resolutely held those women at distance!--that as she boarded there, she
had oftener tabled with them! Specious as they are, in a week's time,
she would have seen through them; they could not have been always so
guarded, as they were when they saw her but seldom, and when they
prepared themselves to see her; and she would have fled their house as a
place infected. And yet, perhaps, with so determined an enterprizer,
this discovery might have accelerated her ruin.

I know that thou art nice in thy loves. But are there not hundreds of
women, who, though not utterly abandoned, would be taken with thee for
mere personal regards! Make a toy, if thou wilt, of principle, with
respect to such of the sex as regard it as a toy; but rob not an angel of
those purities, which, in her own opinion, constitute the difference
between angelic and brutal qualities.

With regard to the passion itself, the less of soul in either man or
woman, the more sensual are they. Thou, Lovelace, hast a soul, though a
corrupted one; and art more intent (a