But let me call up fairly the rest of your Arguments: You shall not say I deal partially with you, by omitting any that seem to yourself of Importance; and you shall hear the World say, so much I'll answer for them, that they are one as important and as conclusive as the other.
You have supposed the Girl not wicked enough to have devised such a Deceit: That, God and her own Heart alone can tell; and neither you nor I have Right to judge of it. But you add, and this we both may judge of, That you do not suppose her witty enough to have invented the Story. I give you Joy, Sir, of your
own Wit, for thinking so! I am very far from entertaining an high Opinion of the Girl's Intellects; but such as they are, I think the Story tallies with them: none but a Fool could have devised so bad a one.
You say 'tis worthy of some Writer of Romances. I love to hear Men talk in Character: no one knows better how much Wit is necessary to the writing of such Books; and, to do Justice to your last Performance, no Man has proved more fully, with how small a Share of it, they may be written.
But I shall follow you through some more of these your supposed Improbabilities; and shew you they are all as probable as these. That she should fix upon a Place so far from home, is one of them. That may have been the very Reason why she fixed upon it: To me it would have seemed much more strange, if she had fixed on one that was nearer. The farther off, the farther from Detection.
That Mrs. Wells's House should be particularly hit upon seems strange to you. But Mrs. Wells's was a House of evil Fame, and there was no other such about the
Neighbourhood: The Improbability must needs be, therefore, that of their fixing upon any other.
We are asked, How should she know this House, as she approached it? No body ever heard that she did know it, as she approached: And for the famous Question, How she could, among a Number of People, fix upon the Gipsy whom she had particularly described before, as the Person that had robbed her? The Answer is a very fatal and severe one; it is that she had not particularly described her before. It is palpable she never spoke of her even as a Gipsy, though no Woman ever possessed the Colour and the Character of that singular People so strongly: Nor had she given any particular Account of her Face; which, had she ever seen it before, must have been remembered; for it is like that of no human Creature. The lower Part of it affected most remarkably by the Evil: The under Lip of an enormous Thickness; and the Nose such as never before stood in a mortal Countenance.
But these are Trifles: You'll give me up all these: I know you will; for you'll do every Thing you must. You'll give all this and laugh at the Advantage. The Strength is yet behind: These are the Outworks; but I shall overthrow your Citadel. This Evidence of Hall, you have reserved to the End; and I have reserved it too. Let us now state it fairly. I'll give it all the Strength you can desire; and when I have done so, I will shew you, but that's unnecessary; I'll explain to the World, how all its false Strength was derived to it. Let us here take it in the whole.