I answered I required no submission, except to reason; to which I hoped both he and I should always be subject.
Love, he replied, was so disdainful of restraint that it would not acknowledge the control of reason itself. However, by representing to him how particular our mutual absence from the company would seem, unless we could condescend to tell some falsehood, which I would not I said suppose possible to either of us, I prevailed on him to subscribe to this short delay.
His passions and feelings are strong. One minute he seemed affected by the approbation which, as far as I could with truth, I did not scruple to bestow on his many superior gifts; and the next to conceive some chagrin that I should for a moment hesitate. The noblest natures, Louisa, are the most subject to pride, can the least endure neglect, and are aptest to construe whatever is not directly affirmative in their favour into injustice.
With respect to the Count de Beaunoir, he has been more passionate, in expressing how much he admires me, than my reserve to him can have authorised; except so far as he follows the manners of his country, and the impulse of his peculiar character. I suppose he means little; though he has said much. Not that I am certain. He may be more in earnest than I desire; but I hope he is not; because, if I am to be your sister as well as your friend, I should be sorry that any thing should excite a shadow of doubt in the mind of Clifton.
The Count is one of the Provencal nobility; a whimsical creature, with an imagination amazingly rapid, but extravagant. Your brother calls him Count Shatter-brain; and I tell him that he forgets he has some claim to the title himself. The Count has read the old Provençal poets, and romance writers, till he has made himself a kind of Don Quixote; except that he has none of the Don's delightful systematic gravity. The Count on the contrary amuses by his want of system, and his quick, changeable incongruity. He is in raptures one moment with what he laughs at the next. Were it not for the mad follies of jealousy, against which we cannot be too guarded, the manner in which he addresses, or in his own language adores me, would be pleasant. If I wished to pass my life in laughing, I would certainly marry the Count.
I am called to dinner. Adieu.
Ever and ever yours,
A. W. ST. IVES
LETTER XXXVIII
Anna Wenbourne St. Ives to Louisa Clifton