What is the connotation of the phrase “clandestine correspondence,”as it is used here.

"and these i address to all females that would be married, or are already so; not that i suppose their sex more faulty than the other, and most to want advice, for i assure [women], upon my honour, i believe the quite contrary; but the reason is, because i esteem them better disposed to receive and practice it, and therefore am willing to begin, where i may promise myself the best success." this statement from franklin's "rules and maxims for promoting matrimonial happiness" best demonstrates his use of criticism to argue his point his use of common sense to appeal to women his use of flattery to gain women's attention his use of facts to prove his point

[1] nothing that comes from the desert expresses its extremes better than the unhappy growth of the tree yuccas. tormented, thin forests of it stalk drearily in the high mesas, particularly in that triangular slip that fans out eastward from the meeting of the sierras and coastwise hills. the yucca bristles with bayonet-pointed leaves, dull green, growing shaggy with age like an old [5] man's tangled gray beard, tipped with panicles of foul, greenish blooms. after its death, which is slow, the ghostly hollow network of its woody skeleton, with hardly power to rot, makes even the moonlight fearful. but it isn't always this way. before the yucca has come to flower, while yet its bloom is a luxurious, creamy, cone-shaped bud of the size of a small cabbage, full of sugary sap. the indians twist it deftly out of its fence of daggers and roast the prize for their [10] own delectation why does the author use the words "bayonet-pointed" (line 4) and "fence of daggers" (line 9) to describe the leaves of the yucca tree? . to create an image of the sharp edges of the plant to emphasize how beautiful the plant's leaves are to explain when and where the plant grows to show how afraid the author is of the plant

What best identifies the meter used in this passage of poetry