Letter XCV

Summary

Mrs. Pratt,

I inclose the Letter you put into my Hands, and hope it will be the last I shall ever receive from you or any body else on the like Occasion. I am intirely satisfied in the Care and Kindness of my Guardian, and shall encourage no Proposal of this sort, but what comes recommended to me by his Approbation. He knows the World. I do not; and that which is not fit for him to know, is not fit for me to receive; and I am sorry either you or the Writer looks upon me in so weak a Light, as to imagine I would wish to take myself out of the Hands of so experienced a Friend, to throwmyself into those of a Stranger. Yet I would not, as this is the first Attempt of the kind from you, and that it may rather be the Effect of Inconsideration, than Design, shew it my Guardian; because he would not perhaps impute it to so favourable a Motive in you, as I am willing to do, being

Your Friend and Servant.

If there be no Go-between, but that a young Fellow takes upon himself to send Letters to teize a young Lady to encourage his Address, by his romantick Professions of his Affection and Regard for her, and attributing such Perfections to her, as no one Woman ever had; and if she is desirous, but knows not how, to get rid of his troublesome Importunity; and that even a contemptuous Silence, which it is prudent for a young Lady to shew on such an Occasion, has no Effect upon him; nor yet that he will desist, tho’ she returns his Letters unopen’d, or in a blank Cover, after she happens to have read them, then let the Lady get some Friend to write to him, looking upon him as beneath her own Notice; for even a Denial, if given in Writing under her own Hand, will encourage some presumptuous Men; or at least they may make some Use of it to the Lady's Disadvantage, and ought not to have it to boast, that they have received a Letter from her, tho’ ever so much to their own Discredit, if it were shewn.