If you had come one half-hour sooner this morning, you would have seen her: I know she is exactly suited to your excellent taste.

But it is not at first sight she pleases most; she gains upon the affections, attaches the heart, and unfolds upon the judgment.

In temper, manners, and good sense, in every quality a man can or should desire in a wife, I never saw her equal.

Yet, there is an obstacle, an invincible obstacle, the nature of which I cannot explain to you, that forbids me to think of her as a wife.

She lives with my father and mother: they are returning to Ireland, I wished, earnestly wished, on many accounts, to have accompanied them, chiefly on my mother's; but it cannot be.