pretty prattle of ideas gives very fine views of pleasure, which only the
dear declaimer prevents, by understanding them literally. Why should she
wish to be a cherubim, when it is flesh and blood that makes her
adorable? If I speak to her, that is a high breach of the idea of
intuition: If I offer at her hand or lip, she shrinks from the touch like
a sensitive plant, and would contract herself into mere spirit. She calls
her chariot, vehicle; her furbelowed scarf, pinions; her blue manteau and
petticoat is her azure dress; and her footman goes by the name of Oberon.
It is my misfortune to be six foot and a half high, two full spans
between the shoulders, thirteen inches diameter in the calves; and before
I was in love, I had a noble stomach, and usually went to bed sober with
two bottles. I am not quite six and twenty, and my nose is marked truly
aquiline. For these reasons, I am in a very particular manner her
aversion. What shall I do? Impudence itself cannot reclaim her. If I
write miserable, she reckons me among the children of perdition, and
discards me her region: If I assume the gross and substantial, she plays
the real ghost with me, and vanishes in a moment. I had hopes in the
hypocrisy of the sex; but perseverance makes it as bad as a fixed
aversion. I desire your opinion, Whether I may not lawfully play the
inquisition upon her, make use of a little force, and put her to the rack
and the torture, only to convince her, she has really fine limbs, without
spoiling or distorting them. I expect your directions, ere I proceed to
dwindle and fall away with despair; which at present I don't think
advisable, because, if she should recant, she may then hate me perhaps
in the other extreme for my tenuity. I am (with impatience)

"Your most humble servant,

"CHARLES STURDY."