there would be no bearing
him,) that the lowest submissions on his part would not be accepted; and
to oblige me, has offered to seek a reconciliation with them, if I would
give him hope of success.

As to his behaviour at church, the Sunday before last, I lay no stress
upon that, because I doubt there was too much outward pride in his
intentional humility, or Shorey, who is not his enemy, could not have
mistaken it.

I do not think him so deeply learned in human nature, or in ethics, as
some have thought him. Don't you remember how he stared at the following
trite observations, which every moralist could have furnished him with?
Complaining as he did, in a half-menacing strain, of the obloquies
raised against him--'That if he were innocent, he should despise the
obloquy: if not, revenge would not wipe off his guilt.' 'That nobody
ever thought of turning a sword into a sponge!' 'That it was in his own
power by reformation of an error laid to his charge by an enemy, to make
that enemy one of his best friends; and (which was the noblest revenge
in the world) against his will; since an enemy would not wish him to be
without the faults he taxed him with.'

But the intention, he said, was the wound.

How so, I asked him, when that cannot wound without the application?
'That the adversary only held the sword: he himself pointed it to his
breast:--And why should he mortally resent that malice, which he might
be the better for as long as he lived?'--What could be the reading
he has been said to be master of, to wonder, as he did, at these
observations?

But, indeed, he must take pleasure in revenge; and yet holds others to
be inexcusable for the same fault. He is not, however, the only one
who can see how truly blamable those errors are in another, which they
hardly think such in themselves.

From these considerations, from these over-balances, it was, that I
said, in a former, that I would not be in love with this man for the
world: and it was going further than prudence would warrant, when I was
for compounding with you, by the words conditional liking, which you so
humourously rally.

Well but, methinks you say, what is all this to the purpose? This is
still but reasoning: but, if you are in love, you are: and love,
like the vapours, is the deeper rooted for having no sufficient cause
assignable for its hold. And so you call upon me again to have no
reserves, and so-forth.

Why then, my dear, if you will have it,