You see, Sir, that I can, however, be as free with myself as with you: and by what I am going to write, you will find me still more free; and yet I am aware that such of my sex as will not assume some little dignity, and exact respect from your's, will render themselves cheap; and, perhaps, for their modesty and diffidence, be repaid with scorn and insult.
But the scorn I will endeavour not to deserve; and the insult I will not bear.
In some of the dear creature's papers which you have had in your possession, and must again have, in order to get transcribed, you will find several friendly, but severe reprehensions of me, on account of a natural, or, at least, an habitual, warmth of temper, which she was pleased to impute to me.
I was thinking to give you her charge against me in her own words, from one of her letters delivered to me with her own hands, on taking leave of me on the last visit she honoured me with. But I will supply that charge by confession of more than it imports; to wit, 'That I am haughty, uncontroulable, and violent in my temper;' this, I say; 'Impatient of contradiction,' was my beloved's charge; [from any body but her dear self, she should have said;] 'and aim not at that affability, that gentleness, next to meekness, which, in the letter I was going to communicate, she tells me are the peculiar and indispensable characteristics of a real fine lady; who, she is pleased to say, should appear to be gall-less as a dove; and never should know what warmth or high spirit is, but in the cause of religion or virtue; or in cases where her own honour, the honour of a friend, or that of an innocent person, is concerned.'
Now, Sir, as I needs must plead guilty to this indictment, do you think I ought not to resolve upon a single life?—I, who have such an opinion of your sex, that I think there is not one man in an hundred whom a woman of sense and spirit can either honour or obey, though you make us promise both, in that solemn form of words which unites or rather binds us to you in marriage?
When I look round upon all the married people of my acquaintance, and see how they live, and what they bear who live best, I am confirmed in my dislike to the state.
Well do your sex contrive to bring us up fools and idiots, in order to make us bear the yoke you lay upon our shoulders; and that we may not despise you from our hearts, (as we certainly should, if we were brought up as you are,) for your ignorance, as much as you often make us do (as it is) for your insolence.
These, Sir, are some of my notions. And, with these notions, let me repeat my question, Do you think I ought to marry at all?
If I marry either a sordid or an imperious wretch, can I, do you think, live with him? And ought a man of a contrary character, for the sake of either of our reputations, to be plagued with me?
Long did I stand out against all the offers made me, and against all the persuasions of my mother; and, to tell you the truth, the longer, and with the more obstinacy, as the person my choice would have first fallen upon was neither approved by my mother, nor by my dear friend. This riveted me to my pride, and to my opposition; for although I was convinced, after a while, that my choice would neither have been prudent nor happy; and that the specious wretch was not what he had made me believe he was; yet could I not easily think of any other man; and indeed, from the detection of him, took a settled aversion to the whole sex.