could trust her to the man of her choice more readily than to the wealthy
young nobleman; of whose discreetness he had not the highest opinion. He
reconciled this view with his warm feeling for the Countess of Fleetwood
to be, by saying: 'Crinny will tame him!' His faith was in her dauntless
bold spirit, not thinking of the animal she was to tame.

Countess Livia, after receiving Henrietta's letter of information,
descended on them and thought them each and all a crazed set. Love,
as a motive of action for a woman, she considered the female's lunacy
and suicide. Men are born subject to it, happily, and thus the balance
between the lordly half of creation and the frail is rectified. We women
dress, and smile, sigh, if you like, to excite the malady. But if we are
the fools to share it, we lose our chance; instead of the queens, we are
the slaves, and instead of a life of pleasure, we pass from fever to
fever at a tyrant's caprice: he does rightly in despising us. Ay, and
many a worthy woman thinks the same. Educated in dependency as they are,
they come to the idea of love to snatch at it for their weapon of the
man's weakness. For which my lord calls them heartless, and poets are
angry with them, rightly or wrongly.

It must, I fear, be admitted for a truth, that sorrow is the portion of
young women who give the full measure of love to the engagement, marrying
for love. At least, Countess Livia could declare subsequently she had
foretold it and warned her cousin. Not another reflection do you hear
from me, if I must pay forfeit of my privilege to hurry you on past
descriptions of places and anatomy of character and impertinent talk
about philosophy in a story. When we are startled and offended by the
insinuated tracing of principal incidents to a thread-bare spot in the
nether garments of a man of no significance, I lose patience.