The whole scope and measure of a woman’s heart and brain, and the whole purpose of her being, is love; and her whole knowledge forces itself into one inquiry: Am I worthy of the love of him I love? And does he love me? But I have thought over all this social matter, and have asked myself if I could have loved him better if he had not been what he was—if he had been a member of Parliament? Well, they had been plenty in our family—there were, among the rest, uncle Hudson, and cousin Charles, and cousin Edward Buxton, and cousin Priscilla’s husband; so, too, father had consented to be; and finally, Jackey himself was there, and filling Walpole’s chair, or at least the edge of it. And what was it but too palpable a sham? We all knew this—men and women—and we lived on it meanly, enjoying the empty honor and the empty praises of those in truth below us, because they so stupidly praised us. Oh, it was so foolish, all this member of Parliament pride! I loved William rather because he was not a member of Parliament—at least because it was not his aspiration. And then, if he had been an elder of the meeting? He!—what think you of that, E * * *? Or my Lord Bishop of Norwich—the Lord of diluted _pater nosters_—was he above him? Are these the things to marry a breathing woman to? Does any one think a _liaison_ with the Bishop would have ennobled me?—or the embraces of the elder? It is scarcely needful to say to you, my dear, that in the above there is not the slightest personal disrespect intended to Mr. Pelham or any other individual being. True men are not such. A woman’s instincts repel such forms of men. You may dress the real as meanly as an American slave, or you may elaborate the attire of the counterfeit to the antipodes of this—to pontifical robes—and the living soul of a woman will never fail to distinguish the false from the true. Why you yourself, E * * *, would have wept your eyes out, I am sure, if I could have deliberately linked myself to the lifeless purpose in which the vitality of such beings ends. He is not one of these. He is a man, E * * *, whom I love. Do you wonder I love him? It is because he is a man—a man, and not a hollow make-believe. It is so with every true woman. In her love she recognizes no distinction of position. The gods of her idolatry, like the statues of the Greeks—whether standing in a rough warehouse or in the Louvre—remain unchanged in the calmness of their beauty and power. We ask nothing more of them but themselves, to gaze upon them, to become intoxicated, and to die with the love of them. Such seems to me the man to whom, by the profoundest law of my nature, I yield my being.