o with swindlers?--is it not
the mere instinct of preservation which makes them do it? These make
women what they are. And your 'honourable men,' the most loyal of
them, (for instance) is it not a rule with them (unless when taken
unaware through a want of self-government) to force a woman (trying
all means) to force a woman to stand committed in her affections ...
(they with their feet lifted all the time to trample on her for want
of delicacy) before _they_ risk the pin-prick to their own personal
pitiful vanities? Oh--to see how these things are set about by _men_!
to see how a man carefully holding up on each side the skirts of an
embroidered vanity to keep it quite safe from the wet, will contrive
to tell you in so many words that he ... might love you if the sun
shone! And women are to be blamed! Why there are, to be sure, cold and
heartless, light and changeable, ungenerous and calculating women in
the world!--that is sure. But for the most part, they are only what
they are made ... and far better than the nature of the making ... of
that I am confident. The loyal make the loyal, the disloyal the
disloyal. And I give no more discredit to those women you speak of,
than I myself can take any credit in this thing--I. Because who could
be disloyal with _you_ ... with whatever corrupt inclination? _you_,
who are the noblest of all? If you judge me so, ... it is my privilege
rather than my merit ... as I feel of myself.

_Wednesday._--All but the last few lines of all this was written
before I saw you yesterday, ever dearest--and since, I have been
reading your third act which is perfectly noble and worthy of you both
in the conception and expression, and carries the reader on
triumphantly ... to speak for one reader. It seems to me too that the
language is freer--there is less inversion and more breadth of rhythm.
It just strikes me so for the first impression. At any rate the
interest grows and grows. You have a secret about Domizia, I
guess--which will not be told till the last perhaps. And that poor,
noble Luria, who will be equal to the leap ... as it is easy to see.
It is full, altogether, of magnanimities;--noble, and nobly put. I
will go on with my notes, and those, you shall have at once ... I mean
together ... presently. And don't hurry and chafe yourself for the
fourth act--now that you are better! To be ill again--think what that
would be! Luria will be great now whatever you do--or whatever you do
_not_.