'Yet I have no hope! What I now write is presumption, is madness! And why? It is not your beauty, your virtues, or the supreme qualities of your mind that would raise this gulph of misery between us. No. Avarice, vanity, and prejudice are my enemies. It is they that would sacrifice you at their altars. That you will persevere in your refusal is my only hope.
'How shall I palliate, what I cannot defend, my behaviour while I overheard you and your aunt? In vain do I plead that I was asleep, when you came into the coach; and that I first discovered you by the sound of your voice and the turn of the conversation; that I dreaded exciting any sudden alarm in you: perhaps it was a vain dread: and that, when I ought most to have spoken, when I became the subject of the discourse, I was then chained in silence by unconquerable emotions. Yet to be a listener? Indeed, indeed, it is a thing that my soul disdains! But I have done many such things; not knowing, while they passed, what it was that I did.
'My destiny now is to study the law; and to this my days and nights shall be devoted: but the distance at which I see myself from the goal is a thought which I am obliged, by every possible effort, to shut out of my memory.
'I am in want of consolation; but since your society is denied me, I know not where it may be found. I own, there are moments in which I am fearfully agitated. Yet I do not solicit an answer. Let me rather perish than prompt you to an action of the propriety of which even I am obliged to doubt; since it cannot I suppose be done without concealment. Oh that you knew every thought of my heart! You would then perceive the burning desire I have to make myself every way worthy of that unutterable bliss to which I aspire.
'Madman! I aspire?
'With what contempt would such daring be treated, by those whom custom and ties of blood have taught you to revere! I confess this is a thought which I cannot endure. Yet I can less endure to relinquish my impossible hopes. Could you conceive what these contradictory and tormenting sensations are, you would perhaps be induced to pardon some of the extravagant acts which I heard you so mildly, yet so justly, censure.
'To be yours then is the end for which I live; and yet my pride and every other feeling revolts, to think I should entreat you to accept a pauper, either in wealth or principle. Well, then, I will not waste my time, in complaint. Let me become worthy of you, or let me perish! Fool! That is impossible. But if fall I must, I will endeavour to make my ruin respectable.
'Suffer me to inform you that I have lately acquired a friend whose virtues are beyond my praise, and who has urged me to accept his aid, in forwarding my studies and pursuits, as an act of duty incumbent on us both. Our acquaintance has been short; and so, considering the serious nature of the subject, was the debate that led to this conclusion: yet his arguments seemed unanswerable, and I hope I have not yielded too lightly. Oh that it was allowed me to consult your exquisite sense of right and wrong! But wishes are vain.
'Thus far I have intruded, yet know not how to end. My only hope that you will take no offence at what I have written is in the conscious respect that my heart feels for you; which I think cannot have misguided my pen; and the knowledge that you are too just lightly to attribute mean or ill motives to me.
'How languid is all that I have written! Am I so impotent that I can present none of the images that so eternally haunt me, that wing me into your presence, furnish me with innumerable arguments which seem so all-persuasive, melt me in tenderness at one moment, supply me with the most irresistible elocution the next, and convince you while they inspire me with raptures inexpressible? Are they all flown, all faded, all extinct? Where is the fervor that devours me?