Excerpt from The History of Sir Charles Grandison, Vol. 3 of 7: In a Series of Letters
And are there some situations, in which a woman must conceal her true sentiments? In which it would be thought immodesty to speak out? - Why was I born with a heart so open and sincere? But why, indeed, as Sir Charles has said in his letter relating to the Danbys, should women be blamed, for owning modestly a passion for a worthy and suitable object? Is it, that they will not speak out, lest, if their wishes should not be crowned with success by one man, they should deprive themselves of a chance to succeed with another? Do they not propose to make the man they love, happy? - And is it a crime to acknowledge, that they are so well disposed to a worthy object? A worthy object, I repeat; for that is what will warrant the open heart. What a littleness is there in the custom that compels us to be insincere? And suppose we do not succeed with a first object, shall we cheat a future lover with the notion that he was the first?
Hitherto I had acted with some self-approbation: I told Mr. Greville, Mr. Fenwick, Mr. Orme, Mr. Fowler, that I had not seen the man to whom I could wish to give my hand at the altar: but when I found my heart engaged, I was desirous Lady D. should know that it was. But yet, misled by this same notion of delicacy, I could think myself obliged to the two sisters, and my lord, that they endeavoured to throw a blind over the eyes of good Dr. Bartlett: when the right measure, I now think, would have been, not to have endeavoured to obtain lights from him, that we all thought he was not commissioned to give: or, if we had, to have related to him the whole truth, and not have put on disguises to him; but to have left him wholly a judge of the fit, and the unfit.
And this is love, is it? that puts an honest girl upon approving of such tricks? - Begone, love!
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