all it has cost me, for what can I change it? I feel, that I am neither a philosopher, nor a heroine—but a woman, to whom education has given a sexual character. It is true, I have risen superior to the generality of my oppressed sex; yet, I have neither the talents for a legislator, nor for a reformer, of the world. I have still many female foibles, and shrinking delicacies, that unfit me for rising to arduous heights. Ambition cannot stimulate me, and to accumulate wealth, I am still less fitted. Should I, then, do violence to my heart, and compel it to resign its hopes and expectations, what can preserve me from sinking into, the most abhorred of all states, languor and inanity?—Alas! that tender and faithful heart refuses to change its object—it can never love another. Like Rousseau's Julia, my strong individual attachment has annihilated every man in the creation:—him I love appears, in my eyes, something more—every other, something less.

'I have laboured to improve myself, that I might be worthy of the situation I have chosen. I would unite myself to a man of worth—I would have our mingled virtues and talents perpetuated in our offspring—I would experience those sweet sensations, of which nature has formed my heart so exquisitely susceptible. My ardent sensibilities incite me to love—to seek to inspire sympathy—to be beloved! My heart obstinately refuses to renounce the man, to whose mind my own seems akin! From the centre of private affections, it will at length embrace—like spreading circles on the peaceful bosom of the smooth and expanded lake—the whole sensitive and rational creation. Is it virtue, then, to combat, or to yield to, my passions?'

I considered, and reconsidered, these reasonings, so specious, so flattering, to which passion lent its force. One moment, my mind seemed firmly made up on the part I had to act;—I persuaded myself, that I had gone too far to recede, and that there remained for me no alternative:—the next instant, I shrunk, gasping, from my own resolves, and shuddered at the important consequences which they involved. Amidst a variety of perturbations, of conflicting emotions, I, at length, once more, took up my pen.

 

 

CHAPTER VII

TO AUGUSTUS HARLEY.

'I blush, when I reflect what a weak, wavering, inconsistent being, I must lately have appeared to you. I write to you on important subjects—I forbid you to answer me on paper; and, when you seem inclined to put that period