, and the highest entertainment receives its
greatest charms from her smiles. Besides, I have purchased the seat of
Captain Pribble, about a mile from her mother's; and can I think of
suffering her to leave the neighborhood just as I enter it? I shall
exert every nerve to prevent that, and hope to meet with the usual
success of

PETER SANFORD.

LETTER XXIX.

TO MISS ELIZA WHARTON.

HARTFORD.

You desire me to write to you, my friend; but if you had not, I should
by no means have refrained. I tremble at the precipice on which you
stand, and must echo and reecho the seasonable admonition of the
excellent Mrs. Richman, "Beware of the delusions of fancy." You are
strangely infatuated by them! Let not the magic arts of that worthless
Sanford lead you, like an _ignis fatuus_, from the path of rectitude and
virtue.

I do not find, in all your conversations with him, that one word about
marriage drops from his lips. This is mysterious. No, it is
characteristic of the man. Suppose, however, that his views are
honorable; yet what can you expect, what can you promise yourself, from
such a connection? "A reformed rake," you say, "makes the best
husband"--a trite, but a very erroneous maxim, as the fatal experience
of thousands of our sex can testify. In the first place, I believe that
rakes very seldom _do_ reform while their fortunes and constitutions
enable them to pursue their licentious pleasures. But even allowing this
to happen; can a woman of refinement and delicacy enjoy the society of a
man whose mind has been corrupted, whose taste has been vitiated, and
who has contracted a depravity, both of sentiment and manners, which no
degree of repentance can wholly efface? Besides, of true love they are
absolutely incapable. Their passions have been much too hackneyed to
admit so pure a flame. You cannot anticipate sincere and lasting respect
from them. They have been so long accustomed to the company of those of
our sex who deserve no esteem, that the greatest dignity and purity of
character can never excite it in their breasts. They are naturally prone
to jealousy. Habituated to an intercourse with the baser part of the
sex, they level the whole, and seldom believe any to be incorruptible.
They are always hardhearted and cruel. How else could they triumph in
the miseries which they frequently occasion? Their specious manners may
render them agreeable companions abroad, but at home the evil
propensities of their minds