 forcible and well founded to be overpowered; nor could they perhaps have been vanquished by any less cause. If one of us must suffer the warfare of contending sentiments and principles, let it be me. It was to fly from and if possible forget or subdue them that I projected such a voyage. Our duties to society must not cede to any effeminate compassion for ourselves. We are both enough acquainted with those duties to render us more than commonly culpable, should we be guilty of neglect.
To describe my weakness, and the contention to which my passions have

been lately subject, might tend to awaken emotions in you which ought to be estranged from your mind. Our lot is cast: let us seek support in those principles which first taught us reciprocal esteem, nor palliate our desertion of them by that self pity which would become our reproach. We have dared to make high claims, form high enterprises, and assert high truths; let us shew ourselves worthy of the pretensions we have made, and not by our proper weakness betray the cause of which we are enamoured.
You will not—no, you are too just—I am sure, madam, you will not attribute resolutions like these, which are more (infinitely more) painful to the heart

than they ought to be, to any light or unworthy change of sentiment. Superior gifts, superior attainments, and superior virtues inevitably beget admiration, in those who discover them, for their possessors. Admiration is the parent of esteem, and the continuance and increase of this esteem is affection, or, in its purest and best sense, love. To say I would not esteem and would not love virtue, and especially high and unusual virtue, would be both folly and guilt.
But you have taught me how pure and self-denying this love may be. Oh that the man of your choice may but become all you hope, and all of which his uncommon powers are capable! Oh

that I may but see you as happy as you deserve to be, and I think I shall then not bestow much pity upon myself.
I have forborne, madam, to intrude the petty disquiets of another kind, from which as you will readily imagine I cannot have been wholly free. Need I say how much I disapprove my father's views, and the mode by which he would have them accomplished? There is no effort I will not make to conquer and remove this obstacle. It wounds me to the heart that you, the daughter of his benefactor, should for a moment be dependant on his avarice. The injury and iniquity are equally revolting
