corrupted, nor ignorance brutalized—can be wholly insensible to the balmy sweetness, which natural, unsophisticated, affections, shed through the human heart?

'But I check my pen:—I am no longer—

 "The hope-flush'd enterer on the stage of life." 

'The dreams of youth, chaced by premature reflection, have given place to soberer, to sadder, conclusions; and while I acknowledge, that it would be inexpressibly soothing to me to believe, that in happier circumstances, my artless affection might have awakened in your mind a sympathetic tenderness:—this is the extent of my hopes!—I recollect you once told me "It was our duty to make our reason conquer the sensibility of our heart." Yet, why? Is, then, apathy the perfection of our nature—and is not that nature refined and harmonized by the gentle and social affections? The Being who gave to the mind its reason, gave also to the heart its sensibility.

'I make no apologies for, because I feel no consciousness of, weakness. An attachment sanctioned by nature, reason, and virtue, ennoble the mind capable of conceiving and cherishing it: of such an attachment a corrupt heart is utterly incapable.

'You may tell me, perhaps, "that the portrait on which my fancy has dwelt enamoured, owes all its graces, its glowing colouring—like the ideal beauty of the ancient artists—to the imagination capable of sketching the dangerous picture."—Allowing this, for a moment, the sentiments it inspires are not the less genuine; and without some degree of illusion, and enthusiasm, all that refines, exalts, softens, embellishes, life—genius, virtue, love itself, languishes. But, on this subject, my opinions have not been lightly formed:—it is not to the personal graces, though "the body charms, because the mind is seen," but to the virtues and talents of the individual (for without intellect, virtue is an empty name), that my heart does homage; and, were I never again to behold you—were you even the husband of another—my tenderness (a tenderness as innocent as it is lively) would never cease!

'But, methinks, I hear you say,—"Whither does all this tend, and what end does it propose?" Alas! this is a question I scarcely dare to ask myself!—Yet, allow me to request, that you will make me one promise, and resolve me one question:—ah! do not evade this enquiry; for much it imports me to have an explicit reply, lest, in indulging my own feelings, I should, unconsciously, plant a thorn in the bosom of another:—Is your heart, at present, free? Or should you, 

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