hand, and what with his unhappy character, and embarrassing ways, on the
other, I had no more leisure than inclination to examine my own heart in
this particular. And this reminds me of a transcribe, though it was
written in raillery. 'May it not be,' say you,** 'that you have had such
persons to deal with, as have not allowed you to attend to the throbs; or
if you had them a little now-and-then, whether, having had two accounts
to place them to, you have not by mistake put them to the wrong one?' A
passage, which, although it came into my mind when Mr. Lovelace was least
exceptionable, yet that I have denied any efficacy to, when he has teased
and vexed me, and given me cause of suspicion. For, after all, my dear,
Mr. Lovelace is not wise in all his ways. And should we not endeavour,
as much as is possible, (where we are not attached by natural ties,) to
like and dislike as reason bids us, and according to the merit or demerit
of the object? If love, as it is called, is allowed to be an excuse for
our most unreasonable follies, and to lay level all the fences that a
careful education has surrounded us by, what is meant by the doctrine of
subduing our passions?--But, O my dearest friend, am I not guilty of a
punishable fault, were I to love this man of errors? And has not my own
heart deceived me, when I thought I did not? And what must be that love,
that has not some degree of purity for its object? I am afraid of
recollecting some passages in my cousin Morden's letter.***--And yet why
fly I from subjects that, duly considered, might tend to correct and
purify my heart? I have carried, I doubt, my notions on this head too
high, not for practice, but for my practice. Yet think me not guilty of
prudery neither; for had I found out as much of myself before; or,
rather, had he given me heart's ease enough before to find it out, you
should have had my confession sooner.


* See Vol. IV. Letter XXXIV.