! I have written two long Letters, continuing my narrative of our proceedings; but I must take you to severe task for this before me; and this and they shall go together.
Wicked wit! What a foe art thou to decent chearfulness!—In a woman's hand such a weapon! What might we not expect from it, were it in a man's? How you justify the very creatures of that Sex, whom you would be thought to despise!
But you say, you would not allow in a man, the liberties you yourself take with your own Sex. How can you, my dear, be so partial to your faults, yet own them to be such? Would you rank with the worst of sinners? They do just so.
I may be a fool: I may be inconsistent: I may not know how with a grace to give effect to my own wishes: I may be able to advise better than act—Most pragmatical creatures think they can be counsellors in another's case, while their own affairs, as my uncle would say, lie at sixes and sevens. But how does this excuse your freedoms with your whole Sex—With the Innocents of it, more particularly?
Let me say, my dear, that you take odious, yes, odious, liberties; I won't recal the word: Liberties which I cannot, tho' to shame you, repeat. Fie upon you, Charlotte!
And yet you say, that neither you nor Lady L. know how to blame me much, tho', the man considered,

you will not totally acquit me of parade; and in another place, that so far as we have proceeded, we have behaved tolerably. Why, then, all this riot?—yes, riot, Charlotte! against us, and against our Sex? What, but for riot's sake?

'The humour upon you!'
—The humour is upon you, with a witness!
'Hang you, if you care!'
—But, my dear, it would be more to your credit if you did care; and if you checked the wicked humour.—Do you think nobody but you has such talents? Fain would I lower you, since, as it is evident, you take pride in your licence—Forgive me, my dear—Yet I will not say all I think of your wicked wit. Think you, that there are not many who could be as smart, as surprising, as you, were they to indulge a vein of what you call humour? Do you think your brother is not one?