Justice requires that such abuses should be redressed: it is the duty of every man to set himself in opposition to violence, and to strengthen the bonds of society. You may be assured therefore, that, if it be possible for me to effect the union of these two lovers, in spite of an obstinate father, I shall put in execution the intention of heaven, without troubling myself about the approbation of men. You, amiable Madam, are happy in having a father, who doth not presume to judge better than yourself of the means of your own happiness. It is not, however, from his greater sagacity, perhaps, nor from his superior tenderness, that he leaves you thus mistress of your own choice: but what signifies the cause if the effect be the same? Or whether, in the liberty he allows you his indolence supplies the place of his reason? Far from abusing that liberty, the choice you have made, at twenty years of age, must meet with the approbation of the most discreet parent. Your heart, taken up by a friendship without example, had little room for love. You have yet substituted in its place every thing that can supply the want of passion; and, though less a lover than a friend, if you should not happen to prove the fondest wife, you will be certainly the most virtuous; that union, which prudence dictated, will increase with age and end but with life. The impulse of the heart is more blind, but it is more irresistible; and the way to ruin is to lay one’s self under the cruel necessity of opposing it. Happy are those whom love unites as prudence dictates, who have no obstacles to surmount, nor difficulties to encounter! Such would be our friends, were it not for the unreasonable prejudice of an obstinate father. And such, notwithstanding, may they be yet, if one of them be well advised. By yours and Eloisa’s example, we may be equally convinced that it belongs only to the parties themselves to judge how far they will be reciprocally agreeable. If love be not predominant, prudence only directs the choice, as in your case; if passion prevail, nature has already determined it, as in Eloisa’s. So sacred also is the law of nature, that no human being is permitted to transgress it, or can transgress it with impunity; nor can any consideration of rank or fortune abrogate it, without involving mankind in guilt and misfortune.