 worldly glory, and capable of being happy in a mere competence, was (how can I say it? I blush while I write it!) disgusted by a violence that had not been used to be restrained by the accustomed reserve. It was all open day, no dark machinating night, in the heart of the undissembling Olivia. She persecuted the object of her passion with her Love, because she thought she could lay him under obligation to it. By hoping to prove herself more, she made herself appear less than woman. She despised that affectation, that hypocrify, in her Sex, which unpenetrating eyes attribute to modesty and shame—Shame of what! of a natural passion?
But you, Grandison, were too delicate, to be taken with her sincerity. If you had penetration to distinguish between reserve and openness of heart, you had not greatness of mind enough to break thro' the low restraints of custom; and to reward the latter in preference to the former. Yet who, better than you,

knows, that women in Love are actuated by one view, and differ only in outward appearance? Will bars, bolts, walls, rivers, seas, any more with-hold the supercilious, than the less reserved? That passion which made the Florentine compass earth and seas, in hopes of obtaining its end, made, perhaps, the prouder Bologna (and from pride) a more pitiable object—Yet, who ever imputed immodesty to Olivia? Who ever dared to harbour a thought injurious to her virtue? You only (custom her judge) have the power, but not, I hope, the will, to upbraid her. You can. The creature, who, conscious of having alarmed you by the violence of her temper, would have lived with you on terms of probation, and left it to your honour, on full consideration and experience of that temper, to reward her with the celebration, or punish her with rejection (her whole fortune devoted to you) had subjected herself to your challenges. But no-body else could harbour a thought inglorious to her.
And must she yield to the consciousness of her own unworthiness, from a proposal made by herself, which tyrant custom only can condemn?
O yes, she must. There is, among your countrywomen, one who seems born for you, and you for her. If she can abate of a digni y, that a first and only Love alone can gratify, and accept of a secondplaced Love a widower-batchelor, as I may call you, she, I know, must, will, be the
