“I send off these two documents to-night; this done, I shall write to her an offer of marriage. What a fever I 'm in! and all because I feel the necessity of defending myself to _you_,--to you of all men the most headstrong, reckless, and self-indulgent,--a fellow who never curbed a caprice nor restrained a passing fancy; and yet you are just the man to light your cigar, and while you puff away your blue cloud, mutter on about rashness, folly, insanity, and the rest of it, as if the state of your bank account should make that wisdom in _you_, which with _me_ is but mere madness! But I tell you, Harry, it is your very thousands per annum that preclude you from doing what I can. It is your house in town, your stud at Tattersall's, your yacht at Cowes, your grouse-lodge in the Highlands, that tie and fetter you to live like some scores of others, with whom you have n't one solitary sympathy, save in income! You are bound up in all the recognizances of your wealth to dine stupidly, sup languidly, and sink down at last into a marriage of convenience,--to make a wife of her whom 'her Grace' has chosen for you without a single speculation in the contract save the thought of the earl you will be allied to, and the four noble families you 'll have the right to go in mourning for. “And what worse than cant it is to talk of what they call an indiscreet match! What does--what can the world know as to the reasons that impel you, or me, or anybody else, to form a certain attachment? Are they acquainted with our secret and most hidden emotions? Do they understand the project of life we have planned to ourselves? Have they read our utter weariness and contempt for forms that _they_ venerate, and social distinctions that _they_ worship? I am aware that in some cases it requires courage to do this; and in doing it a man virtually throws down the glove to the whole world, and says, 'This woman's love is to me more than all of you'--and so say I at this moment. I must cry halt, I see, Harry. I have set these nerves at work in my wound, and the pain is agony. Tomorrow--to-night, if I 'm able--I shall continue.