By the way, I think the widows ought to raise a statue to my honor, for having done my possible to prove that, for the sake of decorum, morals, and order, they ought to have all the men to themselves.
I have this moment your letter from Rutland. Do you know I am almost angry? Your ideas of love are narrow and pedantic; custom has done enough to make the life of one half of our species tasteless; but you would reduce them to a state of still greater insipidity than even that to which our tyranny has doomed them.
You would limit the pleasure of loving and being beloved, and the charming power of pleasing, to three or four years only in the life of that sex which is peculiarly formed to feel tenderness; women are born with more lively affections than men, which are still more softened by education; to deny them the privilege of being amiable, the only privilege we allow them, as long as nature continues them so, is such a mixture of cruelty and false taste as I should never have suspected you of, notwithstanding your partiality for unripened beauty.
As to myself, I persist in my opinion, that women are most charming when they join the attractions of the mind to those of the person, when they feel the passion they inspire; or rather, that they are never charming till then.
A woman in the first bloom of youth resembles a tree in blossom; when mature, in fruit: but a woman who retains the charms of her person till her understanding is in its full perfection, is like those trees in happier climes, which produce blossoms and fruit together.
You will scarce believe, Jack, that I have lived a week tête à tête, in the midst of a wood, with just the woman I have been describing; a widow extremely my taste, mature, five or six years more so than you say I require, lively, sensible, handsome, without saying one civil thing to her; yet nothing can be more certain.
I could give you powerful reasons for my insensibility; but you are a traitor to love, and therefore have no right to be in any of his secrets.
I will excuse your visits to my sister; as well as I love you myself, I have a thousand reasons for chusing she should not be acquainted with you.
What you say in regard to my mother, gives me pain; I will never take back my little gift to her; and I cannot live in England on my present income, though it enables me to live en prince in Canada.
Adieu! I have not time to say more. I have stole this half hour from the loveliest woman breathing, whom I am going to visit: surely you are infinitely obliged to me. To lessen the obligation, however, my calash is not yet come to the door.