A fine thing, indeed I as
if the wretch, who had run through a course of iniquity, to the
endangering of soul and body, was to be deemed the best companion
for life, to an innocent and virtuous young lady, who is to owe
the kindness of his treatment to her, to his having never before
accompanied with a modest woman; nor, till his interest on one hand
(to which his extravagance, perhaps, compels him to attend), and
his impaired constitution on the other, oblige him to it, so much
as _wished_ to accompany with one; and who always made a jest of the
marriage state, and perhaps, of every thing either serious or sacred!"
"You observe, very well," said Mrs. Towers: "but people will be apt
to think, that you have less reason than any of our sex, to be severe
against such a notion: for who was a greater rake than a certain
gentleman, and who is a better husband?"
"Madam," replied I, "the gentleman you mean, never was a common
town rake: he is a man of sense, and fine understanding: and his
reformation, _secondarily_, as I may say, has been the natural effect
of those extraordinary qualities. But also, I will presume to say,
that that gentleman, as he has not many equals in the nobleness of
his nature, so he is not likely, I doubt, to have many followers, in
a reformation begun in the bloom of youth, upon _self-conviction_, and
altogether, humanly speaking, _spontaneous_.
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