Your cousin will give you information concerning your friend. I imagine, also, he has written to you himself, by the post. First satisfy your impatience on that head, that you may afterwards peruse this letter with composure; for, I give you previous notice, the subject of it demands your attention. I know mankind; I have lived a long time in a few years, and have acquired experience at my own cost; the progress of the passions having been my road to philosophy. But of all the extraordinary things that have come within the compass of my observation, I never saw any thing equal to you and your lover. It is not that either the one or the other has any peculiar characteristic, whereby you might at first be known and distinguished, and through the want of which yours might well enough be mistaken, by a superficial observer, for minds of a common and ordinary cast. You are eminently distinguished, however, by this very difficulty of distinguishing you, and in that the features of a common model, some one of which is wanting in every individual, are all equally perfect in you. Thus every printed copy that comes from the press has its peculiar defects, which distinguish it from the rest of its kind; and if there should happen to come one quite perfect, however beautiful it might appear at first sight, it must be accurately examined to know its perfection. The first time I saw your lover, I was struck as with something new; my good opinion of him increasing daily in proportion as I found cause. With regard to yourself, it was quite otherwise; and the sentiments you inspired were such as I mistook for those of love. The impression you made on me, however, did not arise so much from a difference of sex, as from a characteristical perfection of which the heart cannot be insensible, though love were out of the question. I can see what you would be, though without your friend; but I cannot pretend to say what he would prove without you. Many men may resemble him, but there is but one Eloisa in the world. After doing you an injury, which I shall never forgive myself, your letter soon convinced me of the nature of my sentiments concerning you. I found I was not jealous, and consequently not in love. I saw that you were too amiable for me; that you deserved the first fruits of the heart, and that mine was unworthy of you.