I have, madam, I believe, some genius; and I have much ambition.

But the genius is of the serving kind; and to offer a career to my ambition, I had to find one born to rule.

This is the base and essence of our union; each had need of the other; each recognised, master and servant, lever and fulcrum, the complement of his endowment.

Marriages, they say, are made in heaven: how much more these pure, laborious, intellectual fellowships, born to found empires! Nor is this all.

We found each other ripe, filled with great ideas that took shape and clarified with every word.