The Chevalier persisted in declaring himself an ill-used gentleman, and describing you as a kind of cold Calypso, who lead astray people of an amatory disposition without giving them any sort of compensation, contenting yourself, it seems, with only making one fool instead of two, which is the more approved method of proceeding on such occasions. For my part, I think, you are quite right; and be assured from me that a woman (as society is constituted in England) who gives any advantage to a man may expect a lover, but will sooner or later find a tyrant; and this is not the man’s fault either, perhaps, but is the necessary, and natural result of the circumstances of society which, in fact, tyrannize over the man equally with the woman, that is to say, if either of them have any feeling or honour.
“You can write to me at your leisure and inclination. I have
always laid it down as a maxim, and found it justified by experience,
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“Indeed, I rather look upon love altogether as a sort of hostile transaction, very necessary to make or to break matches, and keep the world going, but by no means a sinecure to the parties concerned.
“Now, as my love perils are, I believe, pretty well over, and yours, by all accounts, are never to begin, we shall be the best friends imaginable, as far as both are concerned, and with this advantage, that we may both fall to loving right and left through all our acquaintance, without either sullenness or sorrow from that amiable passion which are its inseparable attendants.
