Elinor Was To Be The Comforter Of

I Do Assure You, Sir, That I Have No Pretension Whatever Of That Kind Of Elegance Which Consists In Tormenting A Respectable Man. I Would Rather Be Paid The Compliment Of Being Believed Sincere. I Thank You Again And Again For The Honour You Have Done Me In Your Proposals, But To Accept Them Is Absolutely Impossible. My Feelings In Every Respect Forbid It. Can I Speak Plainer? Do Not Consider Me Now As An Elegant Female Intending To Plague You, But As A Rational Creature Speaking The Truth From Her Heart.

When Any Two Young People Take It Into Their Heads To Marry, They Are Pretty Sure By Perseverance To Carry Their Point, Be They Ever So Poor, Or Ever So Imprudent, Or Ever So Little Likely To Be Necessary To Each Other's Ultimate Comfort.

But Shakespeare One Gets Acquainted With Without Knowing How. It Is A Part Of An Englishman's Constitution. His Thoughts And Beauties Are So Spread Abroad That One Touches Them Everywhere; One Is Intimate With Him By Instinct. No Man Of Any Brain Can Open At A Good Part Of One Of His Plays Without Falling Into The Flow Of His Meaning Immediately.

You Think Me Foolish To Call Instruction A Torment, But If You Had Been As Much Used As Myself To Hear Poor Little Children First Learning Their Letters And Then Learning To Spell, If You Had Ever Seen How Stupid They Can Be For A Whole Morning Together, And How Tired My Poor Mother Is At The End Of It, As I Am In The Habit Of Seeing Almost Every Day Of My Life At Home, You Would Allow That To Torment And To Instruct Might Sometimes Be Used As Synonymous Words.

Now They Were As Strangers; Nay Worse Than Strangers, For They Could Never Become Acquainted.