I know where she kept that packet she had--and can steal in and out
of her chamber like Iachimo--like Iachimo? No--that is a bad part.
I will only act Moonshine, and peep harmless into the bed where
faith and beauty and innocence lie dreaming.
But if Osborne's were short and soldierlike letters, it must be
confessed, that were Miss Sedley's letters to Mr. Osborne to be
published, we should have to extend this novel to such a
multiplicity of volumes as not the most sentimental reader could
support; that she not only filled sheets of large paper, but crossed
them with the most astonishing perverseness; that she wrote whole
pages out of poetry-books without the least pity; that she
underlined words and passages with quite a frantic emphasis; and, in
fine, gave the usual tokens of her condition. She wasn't a heroine.
Her letters were full of repetition. She wrote rather doubtful
grammar sometimes, and in her verses took all sorts of liberties
with the metre. But oh, mesdames, if you are not allowed to touch
the heart sometimes in spite of syntax, and are not to be loved
until you all know the difference between trimeter and tetrameter,
may all Poetry go to the deuce, and every schoolmaster perish
miserably!
CHAPTER XIII
Sentimental and Otherwise
I fear the gentleman to whom Miss Amelia's letters were addressed
was rather an obdurate critic.
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