Then leave us our weakness, leave us our follies; they are our best arms:—
“Leave us to trifle with more grace and ease,
Whom folly pleases and whose follies please”
The moment grave sense and solid merit appear, adieu the bewitching caprice, the “lively nonsense,” the exquisite, yet childish susceptibility which charms, interests, captivates.—Believe me, our amiable defects win more than our noblest virtues. Love requires sympathy, and sympathy is seldom connected with a sense of superiority. I envy none their “painful pre-eminence.” Alas! whether it be deformity or excellence which makes us say with Richard the Third,
“I am myself alone!”
it comes to much the same thing. Then let us, Caroline, content ourselves to gain in love, what we lose in esteem.
Man is to be held only by the slightest chains; with the idea that he can break them at pleasure, he submits to them in sport; but his pride revolts against the power to which his reason tells him he ought to submit. What then can woman gain by reason? Can she prove by argument that she is amiable? or demonstrate that she is an angel?
Vain was the industry of the artist, who, to produce the image of perfect beauty, selected from the fairest faces their most faultless features. Equally vain must be the efforts of the philosopher, who would excite the idea of mental perfection, by combining an assemblage of party-coloured virtues.
Such, I had almost said, is my system, but I mean my sentiments. I am not accurate enough to compose a system. After all, how vain are systems, and theories, and reasonings!
We may declaim, but what do we really know? All is uncertainty—human prudence does nothing—fortune every thing: I leave every thing therefore to fortune; you leave nothing. Such is the difference between us,—and which shall be the happiest, time alone can decide. Farewell, dear Caroline; I love you better than I thought I could love a philosopher.
Your ever affectionate