disengage myself from the bashful passive,
and stalk about the room--to-morrow's sun shall gild the altar at which
my vows shall be paid thee!

Then, Jack, the rapture! then the darted sun-beams from her gladdened
eye, drinking up, at one sip, the precious distillation from the pearl-
dropt cheek! Then hands ardently folded, eyes seeming to pronounce, God
bless my Lovelace! to supply the joy-locked tongue: her transports too
strong, and expression too weak, to give utterance to her grateful
meanings!--All--all the studies--all the studies of her future life vowed
and devoted (when she can speak) to acknowledge and return the perpetual
obligation!

If I could bring my charmer to this, would it not be the eligible of
eligibles?--Is it not worth trying for?--As I said, I can marry her when
I will. She can be nobody's but mine, neither for shame, nor by choice,
nor yet by address: for who, that knows my character, believes that the
worst she dreads is now to be dreaded?

I have the highest opinion that man can have (thou knowest I have) of the
merit and perfections of this admirable woman; of her virtue and honour
too, although thou, in a former, art of opinion that she may be
overcome.* Am I not therefore obliged to go further, in order to
contradict thee, and, as I have often urged, to be sure that she is what
I really think her to be, and, if I am ever to marry her, hope to find
her?

* See Vol. III. Letter LI. Paragr. 9.

Then this lady is a mistress of our passions: no one ever had to so much
perfection the art of moving. This all her family know, and have equally
feared and revered her for it. This I know too; and doubt not more and
more to experience. How charmingly must this divine creature warble
forth (if a proper occasion be given) her melodious elegiacs!--Infinite
beauties are there in a weeping eye. I first taught the two nymphs below
to distinguish the several accents of the lamentable in a new subject,
and how admirably some, more than others, become their distresses.

But to return to thy objections--Thou wilt perhaps tell me, in the names
of thy brethren, as well as in thy own name, that, among all the objects
of your respective attempts, there was not one of the rank and merit of
my charming Miss Harlowe.

But let me ask, Has it not been a constant maxim with us, that the
greater the merit on the woman's side, the nobler the victory on the
man's? And as to rank, sense of honour, sense o