I have discussed all the nuptial preliminaries so often,
that I can repeat the forms in which jointures are settled, pin-money
secured, and provisions for younger children ascertained; but am at last
doomed by general consent to everlasting solitude, and excluded by an
irreversible decree from all hopes of connubial felicity. I am pointed
out by every mother, as a man whose visits cannot be admitted without
reproach; who raises hopes only to embitter disappointment, and makes
offers only to seduce girls into a waste of that part of life, in which
they might gain advantageous matches, and become mistresses and mothers.
I hope you will think, that some part of this penal severity may justly
be remitted, when I inform you, that I never yet professed love to a
woman without sincere intentions of marriage; that I have never
continued an appearance of intimacy from the hour that my inclination
changed, but to preserve her whom I was leaving from the shock of
abruptness, or the ignominy of contempt; that I always endeavoured to
give the ladies an opportunity of seeming to discard me; and that I
never forsook a mistress for larger fortune, or brighter beauty, but
because I discovered some irregularity in her conduct, or some depravity
in her mind; not because I was charmed by another, but because I was
offended by herself.
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