Delirium

Did Romantics think women could be a Romantic? The Answer is no.

Because they were Blue Stockings.

' Let me hope my constitution is almost peculiar: my dear mother used to say I should never have a comfortable home, and only last summer, I proved myself perfectly unworthy of one.

While enjoying a month of fine weather at the sea-coast, I was thrown into the company of a most fascinating creature, a real goddes, in my eyes, as long as she took no notice of me. I 'never told my love'* vocally; still, if looks have language, the merest idiot might have guessed I was over head and ears: she understood me, at last, and looked a return - The sweetest of all imaginable looks - and what did I do? I confess it with shame - shrunk icily into myself, like a snail, at every glance retired colder and farther; till; finally, the poor innocent was led to doubt her own senses, and, overwhelmed with confusion at her supposed mistake, persuaded her mother to decamp.

By this curious turn of disposition I have gained the reputation of deliberate heartlessness, how undeserved, I alone can appreciate.

*'never told my love': cf. Twelfth Night, II, iv, 114-16

She never told me her love,

But let concealment, like a worm i' the bud,

Feed in her damask cheek. '

m.