ABSTRACT

Sidney’s overtures cost me some hesitation. They were unquestionably disinterested; and they were made with a plainness rather prepossessing to one who had so lately experienced the hollowness of more flowery profession. Nothing could be objected to his person, manners, or reputation. Miss Mortimer’s ill health rendered the protection I enjoyed more than precarious. Honourable guardianship, and plain sufficiency offered me a tempting alternative to labour and dependence. But I was not in love; and as I had no inclination to marry, I had leisure to see the folly of entering upon peculiar and difficult duties, while I was yet a novice in those which are binding upon all mankind. Sidney had, indeed, by that natural and involuntary hypocrisy which assumes for the time the sentiments of a beloved object, convinced me that he was of a religious turn of mind; and from his avowed heresies I made no doubt of being able to reclaim him; but he wanted a certain masculine dignity of character, which had, I scarcely knew how, become a sine quâ non in my matrimonial views. 228 These things considered, I decided against Sidney; and it so happened, that this decision was formed in an hour after I had received a long and friendly letter from Mr Maitland.