To the test then, as I said, since now I have the question brought home to me, Whether I am to have a wife? And whether she be to be a wife at the first or at the second hand?
I will proceed fairly. I do the dear creature not only strict but generous justice; for I will try her by her own judgment, as well as by our principles.
She blames herself for having corresponded with me, a man of free character; and one indeed whose first view it was to draw her into this correspondence; and who succeeded in it by means unknown to herself.
'Now, what were her inducements to this correspondence?' If not what her niceness makes her think blameworthy, why does she blame herself?
Has she been capable of error? Of persisting in that error?
Whoever was the tempter, that is not the thing; nor what the temptation. The fact, the error, is now before us.
Did she persist in it against parental prohibition?
She owns she did.
Was a daughter ever known who had higher notions of the filial duty, of the parental authority?
Never.