 I am not, I trust,
        mistaken in the recognition of some deeper correspondence than that of
        date in the fact that a consciousness of need in my own life had arisen
        contemporaneously with the possibility of my becoming acquainted with
        you. For in the first hour of meeting you, I had an impression of your
        eminent and perhaps exclusive fitness to supply that need (connected, I
        may say, with such activity of the affections as even the preoccupations
        of a work too special to be abdicated could not uninterruptedly
        dissimulate); and each succeeding opportunity for observation has given
        the impression an added depth by convincing me more emphatically of that
        fitness which I had preconceived, and thus evoking more decisively those
        affections to which I have but now referred. Our conversations have, I
        think, made sufficiently clear to you the tenor of my life and purposes:
        a tenor unsuited, I am aware, to the commoner order of minds. But I have
        discerned in you an elevation of thought and a capability of
        devotedness, which I had hitherto not conceived to be compatible either
        with the early bloom of youth or with those graces of sex that may be
        said at once to win and to confer distinction when combined, as they
        notably are in you, with the mental qualities above indicated. It was, I
        confess, beyond my hope to meet with this rare combination of elements
        both solid and attractive, adapted to supply aid in graver labours and
        to cast a charm over vacant hours; and but for the event of my
        introduction to you (which, let me again say, I trust not to be
        superficially coincident with foreshadowing needs, but providentially
        related thereto as stages towards the completion of a life's plan), I
        should presumably have gone on to the last without any attempt to
        lighten my solitariness by a matrimonial union.
            Such, my dear Miss Brooke, is the accurate statement of my feelings;
        and I rely on your kind indulgence in venturing now to ask you how far
        your own are of a nature to confirm my happy presentiment. To be
        accepted by you as your husband and the earthly guardian of your
        welfare, I should regard as the highest of providential gifts. In return
        I can at least offer you an affection hitherto unwasted, and the
        faithful consecration of a life which, however short in the sequel, has
        no backward pages whereon, if you choose to turn them, you will find
        records such as might justly cause you either bitterness or shame. I
        await the expression of your sentiments with an anxiety which it would
        be the part of wisdom (were it possible) to divert by a more arduous
