it again made me fear she
was not fully apprized of my intent, and though her concurrence might
have been more easily obtained when left only to my influence in a
distant country, where she would have had no friend to support her
different opinion--yet I scorned to take such mean advantage, and
told her my story _now_, with the winter before her in which to take
her measures--her guardians at hand--all displeased at the journey:
and to console her private distress I called into the room to her my
own bosom friend, my beloved Fanny Burney, whose interest as well as
judgment goes all against my marriage; whose skill in life and
manners is superior to that of any man or woman in this age or
nation; whose knowledge of the world, ingenuity of expedient,
delicacy of conduct, and zeal in the cause, will make her a
counsellor invaluable, and leave me destitute of every comfort, of
every hope, of every expectation.

"Such are the hands to which I have cruelly committed thy cause--my
honourable, ardent, artless Piozzi!! Yet I should not deserve the
union I desire with the most disinterested of all human hearts, had I
behaved with less generosity, or endeavoured to gain by cunning what
is withheld by prejudice. Had I set my heart upon a scoundrel, I
might have done virtuously to break it and get loose; but the man I
love, I love for his honesty, for his tenderness of heart, his
dignity of mind, his piety to God, his duty to his mother, and his
delicacy to me. In being united to this man only can I be happy in
this world, and short will be my stay in it, if it is not passed with
him."

"_Brighthelmstone, 16th November 1782_.--For him I have been
contented to reverse the laws of nature, and request of my child that
concurrence which, at my age and a widow, I am not required either by
divine or human institutions to ask even of a parent. The life I gave
her she may now more than repay, only by agreeing to what she will
with difficulty prevent; and which, if she does prevent, will give
her lasting remorse; for those who stab _me_ shall hear me groan:
whereas if she will--but how can she?--gracefully or even
compassionately consent; if she will go abroad with me upon the
chance of his death or mine preventing our union, and live with me
till she is of age-- ... perhaps there is no heart so callous by
avarice, no soul so poisoned by prejudice, no head so feather'd by
foppery, that will forbear to excuse her when she returns to the r