three weeks the wife of another; I shall spend less than my income
here: shall I not then be rich? To make you easy, know I have four
thousand pounds in the funds; and that, from the equality of living
here, an ensign is obliged to spend near as much as I am; he is
inevitably ruined, but I save money.

I pity you, my friend; I am hurt to hear you talk of happiness in
the life you at present lead; of finding pleasure in possessing venal
beauty; you are in danger of acquiring a habit which will vitiate your
taste, and exclude you from that state of refined and tender friendship
for which nature formed a heart like yours, and which is only to be
found in marriage: I need not add, in a marriage of choice.

It has been said that love marriages are generally unhappy; nothing
is more false; marriages of meer inclination will always be so:
passion alone being concerned, when that is gratified, all tenderness
ceases of course: but love, the gay child of sympathy and esteem, is,
when attended by delicacy, the only happiness worth a reasonable man's
pursuit, and the choicest gift of heaven: it is a softer, tenderer
friendship, enlivened by taste, and by the most ardent desire of
pleasing, which time, instead of destroying, will render every hour
more dear and interesting.

If, as you possibly will, you should call me romantic, hear a man of
pleasure on the subject, the Petronius of the last age, the elegant,
but voluptuous St. Evremond, who speaks in the following manner of the
friendship between married persons:

"I believe it is this pleasing intercourse of tenderness, this
reciprocation of esteem, or, if you will, this mutual ardor of