, systematically, weakened the female character, without making any effort to rise above them? Is the example you have given me, of a steady adherence to honour and principle, to be merely respected, without exciting in my bosom any emulation? Dare I to answer these questions in the affirmative, and still ask your esteem—the esteem of the wise and good?—I dare not! No longer weakened by alternate hopes and fears, like the reed yielding to every breeze, I believe myself capable of acting upon firmer principles; and I request, with confidence, the restoration of your friendship! Should I afterwards find, that I have over-rated my own strength, I will frankly tell you so, and expect from your humanity those allowances, which are but a poor substitute for respect.

'Believe, then, my views and motives to be simply such as I state them; at least, such, after severely scrutinizing my heart, they appear to myself; and reply to me with similar ingenuousness. My expectations are very moderate: answer me with simplicity—my very soul sickens at evasion! You have undoubtedly, a right to judge and to determine for yourself; but it will be but just to state to me the reasons for, and the result of, that judgment; in which case, if I cannot obviate those reasons, I shall be bound, however reluctantly, to acquiesce in them. Be assured, I will never complain of any consequences which may ensue, even, from the utterance of all truth.

'Emma.'

10: Godwin's Political Justice.

 

 

CHAPTER III

This letter was succeeded by a renewal of our intercourse and studies. Mrs Denbeigh, my kind hostess, was usually of our parties. We read together, or conversed only on general topics, or upon subjects of literature. I was introduced by Mr Harley to several respectable families, friends of his own and of his mother's. I made many indirect enquiries of our common acquaintance, with a view to discover the supposed object of my friend's attachment, but without success. All that he had, himself, said, respecting such an engagement, had been so vague, that I began to doubt of the reality of its existence.—When, in any subsequent letters (for we continued occasionally to correspond) I ventured to allude to the subject, I was warned 'not to confound my own conceptions with real existences.' When he spoke of a susceptibility to the tender affections, it was always in the past time,—'I have felt,'—'I have been—