XVIII

vain or unreasonable, Madam, as to desire you should therefore think, that my dear, dear Jenny is my kept mistress;⁠—no,⁠—that would be flattering my character in the other extreme, and giving it an air of freedom, which, perhaps, it has no kind of right to. All I contend for, is the utter impossibility, for some volumes, that you, or the most penetrating spirit upon earth, should know how this matter really stands.⁠—It is not impossible, but that my dear, dear Jenny ! tender as the appellation is, may be my child.⁠⸺⁠Consider,⁠—I was born in the year eighteen.⁠—Nor is there anything unnatural or extravagant in the supposition, that my dear Jenny may be my friend.⁠—Friend!⁠—My friend.⁠—Surely, Madam, a friendship between the two sexes may subsist, and be supported without⁠⸻Fy! Mr. Shandy :⁠—Without anything, Madam, but that tender and delicious sentiment, which ever mixes in friendship, where there is a difference of sex. Let me intreat you to study the pure and sentimental parts of the best French Romances;⁠—it will really, Madam, astonish you to see with what a variety of chaste expressions this delicious sentiment, which I have the honour to speak of, is dress’d out.