What a dreadful saying is that! But could I engage your pity, Madam, it would be somewhat.
You have as much of my pity as of my love. But what is person, Clary, with one of your prudence, and your heart disengaged?
Should the eye be disgusted, when the heart is to be engaged?—O Madam, who can think of marrying when the heart is shocked at the first appearance, and where the disgust must be confirmed by every conversation afterwards?
This, Clary, is owing to your prepossession. Let me not have cause to regret that noble firmness of mind in so young a creature which I thought your glory, and which was my boast in your character. In this instance it would be obstinacy, and want of duty.—Have you not made objections to several—
That was to their minds, to their principles, Madam.—But this man—
Is an honest man, Clary Harlowe. He has a good mind. He is a virtuous man.
He an honest man? His a good mind, Madam? He a virtuous man?—
Nobody denies these qualities.
Can he be an honest man who offers terms that will rob all his own relations of their just expectations?—Can his mind be good—
You, Clary Harlowe, for whose sake he offers so much, are the last person who should make this observation.