If you have received the various letters I have written to you, my dear Sedley, since I left England, you are perfectly _au fait_ of all my rambles; and of my perils, and "hair-breadth 'scapes" by sea and by land, beginning with a shipwreck on the island of Rhodes, and ending with the dangers I encountered in paying my compliments to the Dey of Algiers: if not I must refer you to my note book, as a twice told tale is still more tedious to the relater than to the hearer. You must not be incredulous, if said manuscript should contain many wonderful adventures; but I have met with something more rare, more "passing strange," than all the marvels it describes: a woman I _can_ love! nay, that, for my very soul, I could not help loving if I would; and, to say truth, at present I do not wish to make the experiment. You see, Sedley, you were in the main no bad prophet. When we were together, I forswore all womankind in the way of matrimony, because I was disgusted with the manoeuvres of title-hunting mamas, and the _agaceries_ of their varnished daughters, who have little distinction but name, and nothing to guide a selection in the mass of resemblance--nothing to mark their identity--except a scruple, more or less, of folly or coquetry! Now don't plume yourself too much on your penetration; you were not altogether right, it was not the Gallic "_Erycina ridens, quam Jocus circumvolat et Cupido_[7]," who captivated me.--Man seeks in man his fellow, but in woman his contrary; and I am too volatile to be touched by a creature as thoughtless as myself. I should not say as _thoughtless_, but as _gay_; for their heads are continually filled with schemes to excite admiration, or ensure conquest: besides, the Parisian belle is only the more spirited original, of which our own girl of fashion is the elegant but insipid translation. Having told you those I do _not_ like, it is time to give you a faint, a very faint, idea of her I _do_ admire.--But let me go on regularly, and tell you first how I happened to meet with her. [Footnote 7: Laughing Venus, encircled by Love and Joy.]