n enlightened and deliberate choice.

I shall not be fastidious in my choice. I do not expect, and scarcely
desire, much intellectual similitude between me and my wife. Our
opinions and pursuits cannot be in common. While women are formed by
their education, and their education continues in its present state,
tender hearts and misguided understandings are all that we can hope to
meet with.

What are the character, age, and person of the woman to whom you allude?
and what prospect of success would attend my exertions to obtain her
favour?

I have told you she is rich. She is a widow, and owes her riches to the
liberality of her husband, who was a trader of great opulence, and who
died while on a mercantile adventure to Spain. He was not unknown to
you. Your letters from Spain often spoke of him. In short, she is the
widow of Benington, whom you met at Barcelona. She is still in the prime
of life; is not without many feminine attractions; has an ardent and
credulent temper; and is particularly given to devotion. This temper it
would be easy to regulate according to your pleasure and your interest,
and I now submit to you the expediency of an alliance with her.

I am a kinsman, and regarded by her with uncommon deference; and my
commendations, therefore, will be of great service to you, and shall be
given.

I will deal ingenuously with you. It is proper you should be fully
acquainted with the grounds of this proposal. The benefits of rank, and
property, and independence, which I have already mentioned as likely to
accrue to you from this marriage, are solid and valuable benefits;
but these are not the sole advantages, and to benefit you, in these
respects, is not my whole view.

No. My treatment of you henceforth will be regulated by one principle.
I regard you only as one undergoing a probation or apprenticeship; as
subjected to trials of your sincerity and fortitude. The marriage I now
propose to you is desirable, because it will make you independent of me.
Your poverty might create an unsuitable bias in favour of proposals, one
of whose effects would be to set you beyond fortune's reach. That bias
will cease, when you cease to be poor and dependent.

Love is the strongest of all human delusions. That fortitude, which
is not subdued by the tenderness and blandishments of woman, may be
trusted; but no fortitude, which has not undergone that test, will be
trusted by us.

This woman is a charming enthusiast. She w