But, my dear friend, I am uneasy at your aunt's persisting in her persecution of you on Mr Bennet's account. He seems to me to be a person rather created to fill up a vacuum in nature, than to perform any active good in it. His want of sensibility is sufficient to prepossess me against him--There are in the occurrences of a married life so many trials of a man's humanity that he whose want of tenderness might pass unobserved had he continued single--must often appear a very monster considered as a husband. May you be blessed in that state with the man of your heart! I agree with you that opposition, carried on without violence, gives a dignity to our condescension; but we must not carry this too far or we may counteract our design of preserving the heart we have gained. To manage men requires more dexterity than to win them, as the consequence of most _love matches_ evinces. You ask a thousand questions, having never been in London yourself, on account of your aunt's apprehensions of a disease she had not the resolution of giving you at an early period of life[32]. I told you that you must not expect any characters from me, as I was always an enemy to detraction, and few there are that merit commendation. Let us, my dear friend, regulate our _own conduct_, rather than condemn that _of others_: but as I cannot refuse you anything you ask (though I may wonder at your asking) I will suppose we are chatting over a dish of tea, and giving our opinion of a gown or a cap, and will tell you who suits my taste, or who my reason contemns, with as little meaning as if I talked of the gown and not the woman: and this I the more readily do, as I know you will not betray the confidence I place in you. The truth is, however, I am perfectly astonished at the strange characters this town abounds with; and stupified (_if I may_ be allowed the expression) with what I have heard: but, as Shakespeare allows Desdemona to speak after she was smothered, you will permit me to write though I have lost my understanding. And as it was the choice of certain great men to be intelligible, it is probable my present state of mind will lead me to imitate them. But on second thoughts, my being not _au fait_ to the subject may perhaps make me excel in it. Men often expatiate _best_ on what they _least understand_, by the same rule that people in general are contrary to what they would seem.