The charitable construction which has been put upon your _grammatical_
epistle, has _rendered_ me _declinable_ to your complex proposition. As
your presumptuous address, wholly precludes the necessity of an apology
for this abrupt preface; I shall be thereby relieved from an
embarrassment, which the delicacy of the subject would have otherwise
occasioned. The various contradictions visible in your letter, argue a
defect of sincerity. In the first place, you say you would be
_superlatively_ happy to _agree_ with me in the _subjunctive mood_; then
you seem disposed, with an assuming air, so throw in a _conjunction
disjunctive_, and disunite us into various _moods_ and _tenses_. Again
you say that you do not wish to be a _noun adjective_; then, that it is
the _optative_ of your soul, to become a _relative_.--What is a
_relative_ pray, but a _noun adjective?_ You say also, that you trust I
will not opiniate you _singular_: if you are not in the _singular
number_, you must necessarily be in the _plural_. If, then, you have
already formed the _plural number_, by the _interjection_ of a
_copulative conjunction_, connecting you to a _noun substantive_, you
cannot expect, or even wish from me, an accession to your _proposition_.
I candidly declare to you, that a _noun substantive_ in the _singular
number_, is the only _part of speech_ to which I would willingly
_subjoin_ a _copulative conjunction_. Lest you should be disposed to
charge me with assuming the prerogative of your own sex, I shall pass
over many expressions in your letter, which might properly afford a
field for criticism. But let me add, Sir, that as it was an impolite, so
was it a very impolitic thing for you to make use of such unwarranted
freedom, as to make proposals of so immensely great consequence, to a
person, with whom you had so slight an acquaintance. If, previous to the
exhibition of your bold letter, you had perfectly learned my
_disposition_, you must have been sensible, that it would be far from
being _consonant_ with my feelings to admit of a _concord_ with you,
upon conditions so disagreeable as those you offered. Beside, it would
have been by no means a bad plan for you, to have been a little
conversant with my sister _analogy_; as she might have been of
considerable advantage to you in an attempt of this nature: She might,
at least, have supplied you with a _rule_, by which two _noun
substantives_ might have _agreed_ with each other, without transforming
either into a _noun adjective_.