fended with delicacy that sagacious self-respect which, even in his time, preserved a woman now and then from the blunder of an unequal and unbecoming marriage. De Quincey, extolling the art of letter-writing, pays this curious bit of homage to his most valued correspondents:—
"Three out of four letters in the mail-bag will be written by that class of women who have the most leisure, and the most interest in a correspondence by the post; and who combine more intelligence, cultivation, and thoughtfulness than any other class in Europe. They are the unmarried women over twenty-five, who, from mere dignity of character, have renounced all prospects of conjugal and parental life, rather than descend into habits unsuitable to their birth. Women capable of such sacrifices, and marked by such strength of mind, may be expected to think with deep feeling, and to express themselves (unless when they have been too much biassed by bookish connections) with natural grace."
This is something very different from the "All for Love, and the World well lost,"
