In short, I was--I want words to say how I was--my nose had been made to
tingle before; my eyes have before been made to glisten by this
soul-moving beauty; but so very much affected, I never was--for, trying
to check my sensibility, it was too strong for me, and I even sobbed--
Yes, by my soul, I audibly sobbed, and was forced to turn from her before
she had well finished her affecting speech.

I want, methinks, now I had owned the odd sensation, to describe it to
thee--the thing was so strange to me--something choking, as it were, in
my throat--I know not how--yet, I must needs say, though I am out of
countenance upon the recollection, that there was something very pretty
in it; and I wish I could know it again, that I might have a more perfect
idea of it, and be better able to describe it to thee.

But this effect of her joy on such an occasion gives me a high notion of
what that virtue must be [What other name can I call it?] which in a mind
so capable of delicate transport, should be able to make so charming a
creature, in her very bloom, all frost and snow to every advance of love
from the man she hates not. This must be all from education too--Must it
not, Belford? Can education have stronger force in a woman's heart than
nature?--Sure it cannot. But if it can, how entirely right are parents
to cultivate their daughters' minds, and to inspire them with notions of
reserve and distance to our sex: and indeed to make them think highly of
their own! for pride is an excellent substitute, let me tell thee, where
virtue shines not out, as the sun, in its own unborrowed lustre.



LETTER VIII