"That is likewise an advantage. She has wisdom, because she has experience. Her sensibilities are stronger, because they have been exercised and chastened. Her first marriage was unfortunate. The purer is the felicity she will taste in a second! If her second choice be propitious, the greater her tenderness and gratitude."
"But she is a foreigner; independent of control, and rich."
"All which are blessings to herself, and to him for whom her hand is reserved; especially if, like me, he is indigent."
"But then she is unsightly as a night-hag, tawny as a Moor, the eye of a gipsy, low in stature, contemptibly diminutive, scarcely bulk enough to cast a shadow as she walks, less luxuriance than a charred log, fewer elasticities than a sheet pebble."
"Hush! hush! blasphemer!"—(and I put my hand before his mouth)—"have I not told you that in mind, person, and condition, she is the type after which my enamoured fancy has modelled my wife?"
"Oh ho! Then the objection does not lie with you. It lies with her, it seems. She can find nothing in you to esteem! And, pray, for what faults do you think she would reject you?"
"I cannot tell. That she can ever balance for a moment, on such a question, is incredible. Me! me! That Achsa Fielding should think of me!"
"Incredible, indeed! You, who are loathsome in your person, an idiot in your understanding, a villain in your morals! deformed! withered! vain, stupid, and malignant. That such a one should choose you for an idol!"
"Pray, my friend," said I, anxiously, "jest not. What mean you by a hint of this kind?"
"I will not jest, then, but will soberly inquire, what faults are they which make this lady's choice of you so incredible? You are younger than she, though no one, who merely observed your manners and heard you talk, would take you to be under thirty. You are poor: are these impediments?"