No man better
knows how to distinguish between admiration and love, than my patron.
His virtue is virtue upon full proof, and against sensibilities, that it
is heroic to overcome. Lady Olivia knows this: and here I must
acknowledge myself a debtor to you for three articles out of your ten. I
hope soon to discharge the obligation.
Your own time, doctor: but I must say, that whenever you give me Lady
Olivia's story, I shall be pained, if I find that a Clementina is
considered by a beauty of an unhappier turn, as her rival in the love of
Sir Charles Grandison.
Lady Olivia, madam, admires him for his virtue; but she cannot, as he has
made it his study to do, divide admiration from love. What offers has
she not refused?--But she declares, that she had rather be the friend of
Sir Charles Grandison, than the wife of the greatest prince on earth.
This struck me: Have not I said something like it? But surely with
innocence of heart. But here the doctor suggests, that Olivia has put
his virtue to the proof: Yet I hope not.
The FRIEND, Dr. Bartlett!--I hope that no woman who is not quite given up
to dishonour, will pollute the sacred word, by affixing ideas to it, that
cannot be connected with it. A friend is one of the highest characters
that one human creature can shine in to another. There may be love, that
though it has no view but to honour, yet even in wedlock, ripens not into
friendship.
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