ould have given me up for ever: nor should I have been
able to prevent her abandoning of me, unless I had torn up the tree by
the roots to come at the fruit; which I hope still to bring down by a
gentle shake or two, if I can but have patience to stay the ripening
seasoning.

[Thus triumphing in his unpolite cruelty, he says,]

After her haughty treatment of me, I am resolved she shall speak out.
There are a thousand beauties to be discovered in the face, in the
accent, in the bush-beating hesitations of a woman who is earnest about a
subject she wants to introduce, yet knows not how. Silly fellows,
calling themselves generous ones, would value themselves for sparing a
lady's confusion: but they are silly fellows indeed; and rob themselves
of prodigious pleasure by their forwardness; and at the same time deprive
her of displaying a world of charms, which can only be manifested on
these occasions.

I'll tell thee beforehand, how it will be with my charmer in this case--
she will be about it, and about it, several times: but I will not
understand her: at least, after half a dozen hem--ings, she will be
obliged to speak out--I think, Mr. Lovelace--I think, Sir--I think you
were saying some days ago--Still I will be all silence--her eyes fixed
upon my shoe-buckles, as I sit over-against her--ladies when put to it
thus, always admire a man's shoe-buckles, or perhaps some particular
beauties in the carpet. I think you said that Mrs. Fretchville--Then a
crystal tear trickles down each crimson cheek, vexed to have her virgin
pride so little assisted. But, come, my meaning dear, cry I to myself,
remember what I have suffered for thee, and what I have suffered by thee!
Thy tearful pausings shall not be helped out by me. Speak out, love!--O
the sweet confusion! Can I rob myself of so many conflicting beauties by
the precipitate charmer-pitying folly, by which a politer man [thou
knowest, lovely, that I am no polite man!] betrayed by his own
tenderness, and unused to female tears, would have been overcome? I will
feign an irresolution of mind on the occasion, that she may not quite
abhor me--that her reflections on the scene in my absence may bring to
her remembrance some beauties in my part of it: an irresolution that
will be owing to awe, to reverence, to profound veneration; and that will
have more eloquence in it than words can have. Speak out then, love, and
spare not.

Hard-heartedness, as it is called, is an es