 Chapter 41 Sir, having tired myself with thinking, I mean to wear you with reading, and revenge myself that way, for all the unquiet thoughts you have given me. But I intended this a sober letter, and therefore, sans rayrie, let me tell you, I have seriously considered all our misfortunes, and can see no end of them, but by submitting to that which we cannot avoid, and by yielding to it, break the force of a blow which if resisted brings a certain ruin. I think I need not tell you how dear you have been to me, nor that in your kindness I placed all the satisfaction of my life. It was the only happiness I proposed to myself, and had set my heart so much upon it that it was therefore made my punishment, to let me see that, how innocent so ever I thought my affection, it was guilty in being greater than is allowable for things of this world. This not a melancholy humour gives me these apprehensions and inclinations, nor the persuasions of others. This the result of a long strife with myself, before my reason could overcome my passion, or bring me to a perfect resignation to whatsoever is allotted for me. It is now done, I hope, and I have nothing left but to persuade you to that which I assure myself your own judgment will approve in the end, and your reason has often prevailed with you to offer. That which you would have done then out of kindness to me, and point of honour, I would have you do now out of wisdom and kindness to yourself. Not that I would disclaim my pardonate, or lessen my obligation to you. No, I am your friend as much as ever I was in my life. I think more, and I'm sure I shall never be less. I have known you long enough to discern that you have all the qualities that make an excellent friend, and I shall endeavour to deserve that you may be so to me. But I would have you do this upon the justice grounds, and such as may conduce most to your quiet and future satisfaction. When we have tried all ways to happiness, there is no such thing to be found but in a mind conformed to one's condition, whatever it be, and in not aiming at anything that is either impossible or improbable. All the rest is but vanity and vexation of spirit, and I dost pronounce it so from that little knowledge I have had of the world, though I had not scripture for my warrant. The shepherd that bragged to the traveller who asked him what weather it was like to be, that it should be what weather pleased him, and made it good by saying it should be what weather pleased God, and what pleased God should please him. He said an excellent thing in such language, and knew enough to make him the happiest person in the world if he made a right use on it. There can be no pleasure in a struggling life, and that folly which we condemn in an ambitious man that's ever labouring for that which is hardly God, and more uncertainly kept, is seen in all according to their several humours, in some discovertiveness, in others pride, in some stubbornness of nature that chooses always to go against the tide, and in others an unfortunate fancy to things that are in themselves innocent till we make them otherwise by desiring them too much. Of this sort you and I are, I think. We have lived hitherto upon hopes so airy that I've often wondered how they could support the weight of our misfortunes. But passion gives us strength above nature. We see it in mad people, and not to flatter ourselves. Ours is but a refined degree of madness. What can it be else to be lost to all things in the world but that single object that it takes up once fancy, to lose all the quiet and repose of one's life in hunting after it, when there is so little likelihood of ever gaining it, and so many more probable accidents that will infallibly make us miss on it, and which is more than all, it is being mastered by that which reason and religion teaches us to govern, and in that only gives us a preeminence over beasts. This, soberly considered, is enough to let us see our error, and consequently to persuade us to redeem it. To another person I should justify myself that this not a lightness in my nature, nor any interest that is not common to us both that has wrought this change in me. To you that know my heart, and from whom I shall never hide it, to whom a thousand testimonies of my kindness can witness the reality of it, and whose friendship is not built upon common grounds, I have no more to say but that I impose not my opinions upon you, and that I'd rather you took them up as your own choice than upon my entreaty. But if, as we have not differed in anything else, we could agree in this too, and resolve upon a friendship that will be much the perfecter for having nothing of passion in it, how happy might we be without so much as a fear of the change that any accident could bring. We might defy all that fortune could do, and putting off all disguise and constraint with that which only made it necessary make our lives as easy to us as the condition of this world will permit. I may own you as a person that I extremely value and esteem, and for whom I have a particular friendship, and you may consider me as one that will always be your faithful friend and servant, Dorothy Osbourne. This was written when I expected a letter from you, how can I to miss it? I thought at first it might be the carrier's fault in changing his time without giving notice, but he assured me he did, to Nan. My brother's groom came down to day two, and saw her, he tells me, but brings me nothing from her. If nothing of ill be the cause, I am contented. You hear the noise my Lady Anne Blunt has made with her marrying? I'm so worried meeting it in all places where I go, from what she has fallen. They talked but the week before that you should have my Lord of Stafford. Did you not intend to write to me when you read to Jane? That bit of paper did me great service. Without it I should have had strange apprehension, and my sad dreams and the several frights I've waked in would have run so in my head that I should have concluded something of very ill from your silence. Poor Jane is sick, but she'll write, she says, if she can. Did you send the last part of Cyrus to Mr. Hollingsworth? Letter forty-two. Sir, I am extremely sorry that your letter miscarried, but I am confident my brother has it not. As cunning as he is, he could not hide from me, but that I should discover it some way or other. No, he was here, and both his man, when this letter should have come, and not one of them stirred out that day. Indeed, the next day they went all to London. The note you read to Jane came in one of Nan's, by Collins, but nothing else. It must be lost by the porter that was sent with it, and was very unhappy that there should be anything in it of more consequence than ordinary. It may be numbered amongst the rest of our misfortunes, all which an inconsiderate passion has occasioned. You must pardon me. I cannot be reconciled to it. It has been the ruin of us both. It is true that nobody must imagine to themselves ever to be absolute master in it, but there is a great difference between that and yielding to it, between striving with it and soothing it up till it grows too strong for one. Can I remember how ignorantly and innocently I suffered it to steal upon me by degrees? How under a mask of friendship I cousined myself into that which had it appeared to me at first in its true shape I had feared and shunned? Can I discern that it has made the trouble of your life and cast a cloud upon mine that will help to cover me in my grave? Can I know that it roared so upon us both as to make neither of us friends to one another, but agree in running wildly to our own destruction, and that perhaps of some innocent persons who might live to curse our folly that gave them so miserable a being? Ah, if you love yourself or me, you must confess that I have reason to condemn this senseless passion that wears her, it comes, destroys all that entertain it. Nothing of judgment or discretion can live with it, and it puts everything else out of order before it can find a place for itself. What has it brought my poor lady Anne blunt to? She is the talk of all the footmen and boys in the street and will be company for them shortly, and yet is so blinded by her passion as not at all to perceive the misery she has brought herself to. And this fond love of hers has so rooted all sense of nature out of her heart that they say she is no more moved than a statue with the affliction of a father and mother that doted on her, and had placed the comfort of their lives in her preferment. With all this is it not manifest to the whole world that Mr. Blunt could not consider anything in this action but his own interest, and that he makes her a very ill return for all her kindness. If he had loved her truly, he would have died rather than have been the occasion of this misfortune to her. My cousin Franklin, as you observe very well, may say fine things now she is warm in Moore Park, but she is very much altered in her opinions since her marriage if these be her own. She left a gentleman that I could name whom she had much more of kindness for than ever she had for Mr. Franklin, because his estate was less, and upon the discovery of some letters that her mother intercepted, suffered herself to be persuaded that twenty-three hundred pound a year was better than twelve hundred, though with a person she loved. And as recovered it so well that you see she confesses there is nothing in her condition she desires to alter at the charge of a wish. She is happier by much than I shall ever be, but I do not envy her. May she long enjoy it, and I an early and a quiet grave free from the trouble of this busy world, where all with passion pursue their own interests at their neighbour's charges, where nobody is pleased but somebody complains on it, and where it is impossible to be without giving and receiving injuries. You would know what I would be yet, and how I intend to dispose of myself. Alas, where I in my own disposal you should come to my grave to be resolved, but grief alone will not kill. All that I can say then is that I resolve on nothing but to arm myself with patience, to resist nothing that is laid upon me, nor struggle for what I have no hope to get. I have no ends, nor no designs, nor will my heart ever be capable of any. But like a country wasted by a civil war, where two opposing parties have disputed their rights so long till they have made it worth neither of their conquests, this ruined and desolated by the long strife within it to that degree as to all be useful to none. Nobody that knows the condition this in will think it worth the gaining, and I shall not trouble anybody with it. No, really, if I may be permitted to desire anything, it shall be only that I may injure nobody but myself. I can bear anything that reflects only upon me, or if I cannot, I can die. But I would feign die innocent, that I might hope to be happy in the next world though never in this. I take it a little ill that you should conjure me by anything with a belief that is more powerful with me than your kindness. No, assure yourself what that alone cannot gain will be denied to all the world. You would see me, you say. You may do so if you please, though I know not to what end. You deceive yourself if you think it would prevail upon me to alter my intentions. Besides, I can make no contrivances. It must be here, and I must endure the noise it will make, and undergo the senders of a people that choose ever to give the worst interpretation that anything will bear. Yet, if it can be any easy to you to make me more miserable than I am, never spare me. Consider yourself only, and not me at all. It is no more than I deserve for not accepting what you offered me whilst was in your power to make it good, as you say it then was. You were prepared, it seems, but I was surprised I confess. It was a kind fault, though, and you may pardon it with more reason than I have to forgive it myself. And let me tell you this, too, as lost and as wretched as I am, I have still some sense of my reputation left in me. I find that to my cost, I shall attempt to preserve it as clear as I can, and to do that I must, if you see me thus, make it the last of our interviews. What can excuse me if I should not attain any person that is known to pretend to me, when I can have no hope of ever marrying him? And what hope can I have of that, when the fortune that can only make it possible to me depends upon a thousand accidents and contingencies, the uncertainty of the place it is in, and the government it may fall under, your father's life or his success, his disposal of himself and of his fortune, besides the time that must necessarily be required to produce all this, and the changes that may probably bring with it which it is impossible for us to foresee? All this considered, what have I to say for myself, and people shall ask, what does I expect? Can there be anything vainer than such a hope upon such grounds? You must need to see the folly on to yourself, and therefore examine your own heart what this fit for me to do, and what you can do for a person you love, and that deserves your compassion, if nothing else. A person that will always have an inviolable friendship for you, a friendship that shall take up all the room my passion held in my heart, and govern there as master, till death come and take possession, and turn it out. Why should you make an impossibility where there is none? A thousand accidents might have taken me from you, and you must have borne it. Why would not your own resolution work as much upon you as necessity and time does infallibly upon people? Your father would take it very ill, I believe, if you should pretend to love me better than he did my lady. Yet she is dead, and he lives, and perhaps may do to love again. There is a gentle woman in this country that loved so passionately for six or seven years that their friends who kept her from marrying, fearing her death, consented to it. And within half a year her husband died, which afflicted her so strongly nobody thought she would have lived. She saw no light but candles in three years, nor came abroad in five, and now that this some nine years past she is passionately taken again with another, and how long she has been so nobody knows but herself. This is to let you see it is not impossible what I ask, nor unreasonable. Think on it, and attempt it at least. But do it sincerely, and do not help your passion to master you, as you have ever loved me. Do this. The carrier shall bring your letters to Suffolk House, to Jones. I shall long to hear from you. But if you should deny the only hope that's left me, I must beg you will defer it till Christmas Day be passed. For, to deal freely with you, I have some devotions to perform then, which must not be disturbed with anything, and nothing is like to do it as so sensible an affliction. Adjeu, your faithful friend and servant, Dorothy Osborne, letter forty-three. Sir, I can say a little more than I did. I'm convinced that the violence of the world, and all that's in it, and that I deceived myself extremely when I expected anything of comfort from it. No, I have no more to do in it but to grow every day more and more wary of it, if it be possible that I have not yet reached the highest degree of hatred for it. But I thank God I hate nothing else but the base world, and the vices that make a part of it. I am in perfect charity with my enemies, and have compassion for all people's misfortunes, as well as for my own, especially for those I may have caused, and I may truly say I bear my share of such. But as nothing obliges me to relieve a person that is an extreme want till I change conditions with him, and come to be where he began, and that I may be thought compassionate if I do all that I can without prejudicing myself too much. So let me tell you that if I could help it I would not love you, and that as long as I live I shall strive against it, as against that which had been my ruin, and was certainly sent me as a punishment for my sin. But I shall always have a sense of your misfortunes, equal if not above my own. I shall pray that you may obtain a quiet I never hopeful but in my grave, and I shall never change my condition but with my life. Yet let not this give you a hope. Nothing ever can persuade me to enter the world again. I shall, in a short time, have disengaged myself of all my little affairs in it, and set up myself in a condition to apprehend nothing but too long a life. Therefore, I wish you would forget me. And to induce you to it, let me tell you freely that I deserve you should. If I remember anybody, it is against my will. I am possessed with that strange insensibility that my nearest relations have no tie upon me, and I find myself no more concerned in those that I have here too far had great tenderness of affection for, than in my kindred that died long before I was born. Leave me to this, and seek a better fortune. I beg it of you, as heartily, as I forgive you all those strange thoughts you have had of me. Think me so still, if that will do anything towards it. For God's sake, do take any cause that may make you happy, or if that cannot be less unfortunate, at least, than your friend and humble servant Dorothy Osborne. I can hear nothing of that letter, but I hear from all people that I know, part of my unhappy story, and from some that I do not know, a lady whose face I never saw send me as news she had out of Ireland. Sir, if you have ever loved me, do not refuse the last request I shall ever make you, this to preserve yourself from the violence of your passion. Vent it all upon me, call me, and think me what you please. Make me, if it be possible, more wretched than I am. I'll bear it all without the least murmur. Nay, I deserve it all, for had you never seen me, you had certainly been happy. Tis my misfortunes only that have that infectious quality as to strike at the same time me and all that's dear to me. I am the most unfortunate woman breathing, but I was never false. No, I call heaven to witness that if my life could satisfy for the least injury my fortune has done you, I cannot say to as I that did them too. I would lay it down with greater joy than any person ever received a crown, and if I ever forget what I owe you, or ever entertain the thought of kindness for any person in the world besides, may I live a long and miserable life. Tis the greatest curse I can invent, if there be a greater may I feel it. This is all I can say. Tell me if it be possible, I can do anything for you, and tell me how I may deserve your pardon for all the trouble I have given you. I would not die without it. Your faithful friend and servant, Dorothy Osborne, directed for Mr. Temple, letter 45. Sir, tis most true what you say, that few have what they merit, if it were otherwise you would be happy, I think, but then I should be so too, and that must not be. A false and an inconstant person cannot merit it, I'm sure. You are kind in your good wishes, but I aim at no friends nor no princes. The honor would be lost upon me. I should become a crown so ill there would be no striving for it after me, and sure I should not wear it long. Your letter was a much greater loss to me than that of Henry Cromwell, and therefore tis that with all my care and diligence I cannot inquire it out. You will not complain, I believe, of the shortness of my last, whatever else you dislike in it, and if I spare you at any time, tis because I cannot but imagine, since I am so wearisome to myself, that I must need be so to everybody else, though at present I have other occasions that will not permit this to be a long one. I am sorry it should be only in my power to make a friend miserable, and that where I have so great a kindness I should do so great injuries, but tis my fortune, and I must bear it. To be none to you, I hope, to pray for you, nor to desire that you would, all passion laid aside, freely tell me my faults that I may at least ask your forgiveness, or it is not in my power to make your better satisfaction. I would faint make even with all the world, and be out of danger of dying in anybody's debt. Then I have nothing more to do in it but to expect when I shall be so happy as to leave it, and always to remember that my misfortune makes all my faults towards you, and that my faults to God make all my misfortunes. Your unhappy friend and servant, Dorothy Osborne. End of Section 9. Chapter 46 Sir, that which I writ by your boy was in so much haste and distraction as I cannot be satisfied with it, nor believe it has expressed my thoughts as I meant them. No, I find it is not easily done at more leisure, and I am yet to seek what to say that is not too little nor too much. I would feign that you see that I am extremely sensible of your affliction, that I would lay down my life to redeem you from it. But that's a mean expression. My life is of so little value that I will not mention it. No, let it be rather what in earnest if I can tell anything I have left that is considerable enough to expose for it. It must be that small reputation I have amongst my friends. That's all my wealth, and that I could part with to restore you to that quiet you lived in when I first knew you. But on the other side I would not give you hopes of that I cannot do. If I loved you less I would allow you to be the same person to me, and I would be the same to you as here to for. But to deal freely with you, that were to betray myself, and I find that my passion would quickly be my master again if I gave it any liberty. I am not secure that it would not make me do the most extravagant things in the world, and I shall be forced to keep a continual war alive with it as long as there are any remainders of it left. I think I might as well have said as long as I lived. Why should you give yourself over so unreasonably to it? Good God, no woman breathing can deserve half the trouble you give yourself. If I were yours from this minute I could not recompense what you have suffered from the violence of your passion. Though I were all that you can imagine me, when God knows I am an inconsiderable person born to a thousand misfortunes which have taken away all sense of anything else from me, and left me a walking misery only. I do for my soul forgive you all the injuries your passion has done me. Though let me tell you I was much more at my ease whilst I was angry, scorn and despite would have cured me in some reasonable time which I despair of now. However, I am not displeased with it, and if it may be of any advantage to you I shall not consider myself in it. But let me beg then that you will leave off those dismal thoughts. I tremble at the desperate things you say in your letter, for the love of God consider seriously with yourself what can enter into comparison with the safety of your soul. Are a thousand women or ten thousand worlds worth it? No, you cannot have so little reason left as you pretend, nor so little religion. For God's sake let us not neglect what can only make us happy for trifles. If God had seen it fit to have satisfied our desires we should have had them, and everything would not have conspired thus to have crossed them. Since he has decreed it otherwise, at least as far as we are able to judge by events, we must submit and not by striving make an innocent passion a sin and show a childish stubbornness. I could say a thousand things more to this purpose if I were not in haste to send this away, that it may come to you at least as soon as the other. Adieu. I cannot imagine who this should be that Mr. Doctor meant, and am inclined to believe it was a story meant to disturb you, though perhaps not by him. Sir, tis never my humour to do injuries, nor was this meant as any to you. No, in earnest, if I could have persuaded you to have quitted a passion that injures you, I had done an act of real friendship, and you might have lived to thank me for it. But since it cannot be, I will attempt it no more. I have laid before you the inconveniences it brings along, how certain the trouble is, and how uncertain the reward, how many accidents may hinder us from ever being happy, and how few there are, and those so unlikely, to make up our desire. All this makes no impression on you. You are still resolved to follow your blind guide, an eye to pity where I cannot help. It will not be amiss, though, to let you see that what I did was merely in consideration of your interest, and not at all of my own, that you may judge of me accordingly. And to do that, I must tell you that unless it were after the receipt of those letters that made me angry, I never had the least hope of wearing out my passion, nor to say truth, much desire. For to what purpose should I have strived against it? T'was innocent enough in me that resolved never to marry, and would have kept me company in this solitary place as long as I lived, without being a trouble to myself or anybody else. Nay, in earnest, if I could have hoped you would be so much your own friend as to seek out a happiness in some other person, nothing under heaven could have satisfied me like entertaining myself with the thought of having done you service, and diverting you from a troublesome pursuit of what is so uncertain, and by that giving you the occasion of a better fortune. Otherwise, whether you loved me still, or whether you did not, was equally the same to me, your interest set aside. I will not reproach you how ill an interpretation you made of this, because we will have no more quarrels. On the contrary, because I seat his in vain to think of curing you, I'll study only to give you what ease I can, and leave the rest to better physicians, to time, and fortune. Here, then, I declare that you have still the same power in my heart that I gave you at our last parting, that I will never marry any other, and that if our fortunes will allow us to marry, you shall dispose of me as you please. But this, to deal freely with you, I do not hope for. No, tis too great a happiness, and I, that know my self best, must acknowledge I deserve crosses and afflictions, but can never merit such a blessing. You note is not a fear of want that frights me. I thank God I never distrusted his providence, nor I hope never shall. And without attributing anything to myself, I may acknowledge he has given me a mind that can be satisfied with as narrow a compass as that of any person living of my rank. But I confess that I have, and humor, will not suffer me to expose myself to people's scorn. The name of love has grown so contemptible by the folly of such as have falsely pretended to it, and so many giddy people have married upon that score and repented so shamefully afterwards, that nobody can do anything that tends toward it without being esteemed a ridiculous person. Now, as my young lady Holland says, I never pretended to wit in my life, but I cannot be satisfied that the world should think me a fool, so that all I can do for you will be to preserve a constant kindness for you, which nothing shall ever alter or diminish. I'll never give you any more alarms. By going about to persuade you against that you have for me. But from this hour we'll live quietly. No more fears, no more jealousies. The wealth of the whole world by the grace of God shall not tempt me to break my word with you, nor the importunity of all my friends I have. Keep this as a testimony against me if ever I do, and make me a reproach to them buy it. Therefore be secure, and rest satisfied with what I can do for you. You should come hither but that I expect my brother every day, not but that he designed a longer stay when he went, but since he keeps his horses with him tis an infallible token that he is coming. We cannot miss fitter times than this twenty in a year, and I shall be as ready to give you notice of such as you can be to desire it. Only you would do me a great pleasure if you could forbear writing, unless it were sometimes on great occasions. This is a strange request for me to make that I have been fonder of your letters than my lady protector is of her new honor, and in earnest would be so still, but there are a thousand inconveniences in it that I could tell you. Tell me what you can do. In the meantime think of some employment for yourself this summer. Who knows what a year may produce. If nothing, we are but where we were, and nothing can hinder us from being, at least, perfect friends. A do. There's nothing so terrible in my other letter, but you may venture to read it. Have not you forgot my lady's book? Your faithful friend and servant, Dorothy Osbourne. Letter forty-eight. Sir, tis but an hour since you went, and I am writing to you already. Is not this kind? How do you after your journey? Are you not weary? Do not repent that you took it to so little purpose. Well, God forgive me, and you too, you made me tell a great lie. I was feigned to say you came only to take your leave before you went abroad, and all this not only to keep quiet, but to keep him from playing the madman. For when he has the least suspicion he carries it so strangely that all the world takes notice on it, and so often guess at the reason, or else he tells it. Now, do but you judge whether if by mischance he should discover the truth, whether he would not rail most sweetly at me, and with some reason, for abusing him. Yet you helped to do it. A sadness that he discovered at your going away inclined him to believe you were ill-satisfied, and made him credit what I said. He is kind now in extremity, and I would be glad to keep him so till a discovery is absolutely necessary. You are going abroad will confirm him much in his belief, and I shall have nothing to torment me in this place but my own doubts and fears. Here I shall find all the repose I am capable of, and nothing will disturb my prayers and wishes for your happiness, which only can make mine. Your journey cannot be to your disadvantage, neither. You must needs be pleased to visit a place you are so much concerned in, and to be a witness yourself of your hopes, though I will believe you need no other inducements to this voyage than my desiring it. I know you love me, and you have no reason to doubt my kindness. Let us both have patience to wait what time and fortune will do for us. They cannot hinder our being perfect friends. Lord, there were a thousand things I remembered after you were gone that I should have said, and now I am to write not one of them will come into my head. Sure as I live it is not settled yet. Good God, the fears and surprises, the crosses and disorders of that day twist confused enough to be a dream, and I am apt to think sometimes it was no more. But no, I saw you. When I shall do it again, God only knows. Can there be a romancer's story than ours would make if the conclusion proved happy? Ah, I dare not hope it. Something that I could not describe draws a cloud over all the light my fancy discovers sometimes, and leaves me so in the dark with all my fears about me that I tremble to think on it. But no more of this sad talk. Who was that Mr. Doctor told you I should marry? I cannot imagine for my life. Tell me, or I shall think you made it to excuse yourself. Did not you say once you knew where good French tweezers were to be had? Pray send me a pair. They shall cut no love. Before you go I must have a ring from you, too, a plain gold one. If I ever marry it shall be my wedding ring. When I die I'll give it you again. What a dismal story this is you sent me. But who could expect better from a love begun upon such grounds? I cannot pity neither of them. They were both so guilty. Yes, they are the more to be pitied for that. Here is a note comes to me just now. Will you do this service for a fine lady that is my friend? Have not I taught her well? She writes better than her mistress. How merry and pleased she is with her marrying because there is a plentiful fortune. Otherwise she would not value the man at all. This is the world. Would you and I were out of it? For sure we would not made to live in it. Do you remember Arm and the little house there? Shall we go thither? That's next to being out of the world. There we might live like bosses and philemen, row old together in our little cottage, and for our charity to some shipwreck strangers obtain the blessing of dying both at the same time. How idly I talk. It is because the story pleases me. None in Ovid so much. I remember I cried when I read it. Me thought they were the perfectest characters of a contented marriage, where piety and love were all their wealth, and in their poverty feasted the gods when rich men shut them out. I am called away. Farewell. Your faithful, faithful friend and servant. Dorothy Osborne. Letter 49. Tis pity I cannot show you what his wit could do upon so ill a subject, but my Lady Ruthen keeps them to abuse me with all, and has put a tune to them that I may hear them all manner of ways, and yet I do protest I remember nothing more of them than this lame piece, a stately and majestic brow of force to make protectors bow. Indeed, if I have any stately looks I think he has seen them, but yet it seems they could not keep him from playing the fool. My Lady Gray told me that one day talking of me to her, as he would find ways to bring in that discourse by the head and shoulders whatsoever anybody else could interpose. He said he wondered I did not marry. She, that understood him well enough, but would not seem to do so, said she knew not, unless it were that I liked my present condition so well that I did not care to change it, which she was apt to believe because to her knowledge I had refused very good fortunes, and named some so far beyond his reach that she thought she had dashed all his hopes. But he, confident still, said, was perhaps that I had no fancy to their persons, as if his own were so taking, that I was to be looked upon as one that had it in my power to please myself, and that perhaps in a person I liked would bait something of fortune. To this, my Lady answered again for me, that was not impossible, but I might do so, but in that point she thought me nice and curious enough, and still, to dishearten him the more, she took occasion, upon his naming some gentleman of the county that had been talked of here too far as my servants, and are since disposed of, to say, very plainly, that was true that they had some of them retended, but there was an end of my Bedfordshire servants. She was sure there were no more that could be admitted into the number. After all this, which would have satisfied an ordinary young man, did I this last Thursday receive a letter from him by Collins, which he sent first to London, that it might convince to me? I threw it in the fire, and do you but keep my counsel, nobody shall ever know that I had it, and my gentleman shall be kept at such a distance as I hope to hear no more of him. Yet I'll swear of late I have used him so near to rudely, that there is little left for me to do. Bye! What a deal of paper I have spent upon this idle fellow! If I had thought his story would have proved so long you should have missed on it, and the loss would not have been great. I have not thanked you yet for my tweezers and essences. They are both very good. I kept one of the little glasses myself. Remember my ring, and in return if I go to London whilst you are in Ireland, I'll have my picture taken in little, and send it you. The sooner you dispatch away will be the better I think, since I have no hopes of seeing you before you go. There lies all your business. Your father and fortune must do all the rest. I cannot be more yours than I am. You are mistaken if you think I stand in awe of my brother. No, I fear nobody's anger. I am proof against all violence. But when people haunt me with reasoning and entreaties, when they look sadly and pretend kindness, when they beg upon that score, tis a strange pain to me to deny. When he rants and renounces me, I can despise him. But when he asks my pardon with tears pleads to me the long and constant friendship between us, and calls heaven to witness that nothing upon earth is dear to him in comparison of me, then I confess I feel a stronger unquietness within me, and I would do anything to evade his importunity. Nothing is so great of violence to me as that which moves my compassion. I can resist with ease any sort of people but beggars. If this be a fault in me, tis at least a well-natured one, and therefore I hope you will forgive it me, you that can forgive me anything you say, and be displeased with nothing whilst I love you. May I never be pleased with anything when I do not. Yet I could beat you for writing this last strange letter. Was there ever anything said like? If I had bit of vanity that the world should admire me, I would not care what they talked of me. In earnest I believe there is nobody displeased that people speak well of them, and reputation is esteemed by all of much greater value than life itself. Yet let me tell you soberly that with all my vanity I could be very well contented nobody should blame me, or any action of mine, to quit all my part of the praises and admiration of the world. And if I might be allowed to choose, my happiest part of it should consist in concealment. There should not be above two persons in the world know that there was such a one in it, as your faithful. Stay! I have not done yet. Here is another good side I find. Here, then, I'll tell you that I am not angry for all this. No, I allow it to your ill humour and that to the crosses that have been common to us. But now that is cleared up. I should expect you should say fine or things to me. Yet take heed of being like my neighbour's servant he is so transported to find no rubs in his way that he knows not whether he stands on his head or his feet. Tis the most troublesome, busy talking little thing that ever was born. His tongue goes like the clack of a mill, but to much less purpose, though if it were all oracle my head would ache to hear that perpetual noise. I admire at her patience and her resolution that could laugh at his foolories and love his fortune. You would wonder to see how tired she is with his impertences, and yet how pleased to think she shall have a great estate with him. But this is the world, and she makes a part of it, the times. Two or three great glistening jewels have bribed her to wink at all his faults, and she hears him as unmoved and unconcerned as if another were to marry him. What, thank you, have I not done fair for once? Would you wish a longer letter? See how kind I grow at parting, who would not go into Ireland to have such another? In earnest now, go as soon as you can, till be the better I think. Who am your faithful friend, Dorothy Osborne? Letter 50 Sir, who would be kind to one that reproaches one so cruelly? Do you think in earnest I could be satisfied the world should think me a dissimilar, full of avarice or ambition? No, you are mistaken, but I'll tell you what I could suffer, that they should say I married where I had no inclination, because my friends thought it fit, rather than that I had run willfully to my own ruin in pursuit of a fond passion of my own. To marry for love were no reproachful thing if we did not see that of thousands of couples that do it, hardly one can be brought for an example that it may be done and not repented afterwards. Is there anything thought so indiscreet, or that makes one more contemptible? Tis true that I do firmly believe we should be, as you say, toujours les mêmes. But if, as you confess, tis that which hardly happens once in two ages, we are not to expect the world to discern we were not like the rest. I'll tell you stories another time, you return them so handsomely upon me. Well, the next servant I tell you of shall not be called a welp, if to or not to give you a stick to beat myself with. I would confess that I looked upon the impudence of this fellow as a punishment upon me for my overcare in avoiding the talk of the world. Yet the case is very different, and no woman shall ever be blamed that an inconsolable person pretends to her when she gives no allowance to it, whereas none shall escape that owns a passion, though in return of a person much above her. The little tailor that loved Queen Elizabeth was suffered to talk out, and none of her counsel thought it necessary to stop his mouth. But the Queen of Sweden's kind letter to the King of Scots was intercepted by her own ambassador because he thought it was not for his mistresses' honour, at least that was his pretended reason, and thought justifiable enough. But to come to my beagle again. I have heard no more of him, though I have seen him since, we met at rest again. I do not doubt but I shall be better able to resist his opportunity than his tutor was. But what do you think it is that gives him his encouragement? He was told I had thought of marrying a gentleman that had not above two hundred pounds a year, only out of my liking to his person, and upon that score his vanity allows him to think he may pretend as far as another. Thus you see, it is not altogether without reason that I apprehend the noise of the world, since it is so much to my disadvantage. Is it in earnest that you say your being there keeps me from the town? If so, tis very unkind. No, if I had gone, it had been to have waited on my neighbour, who has now altered her resolution and goes not herself. I have no business there and I am so little taken with the place that I could sit here seven years without so much as thinking once of going to it. Tis not likely, as you say, that you should much persuade your father to what you do not desire he should do. But it is hard if all the testimonies of my kindness are not enough to satisfy without my publishing to the world that I can forget my friends and all my interests to follow my passion. Though, perhaps, it will admit of a good sense. Tis that which nobody but you or I will give it, and we that are concerned in it can only say it was an act of great kindness and something romance, but must confess it had nothing of prudence, discretion, nor sober counsel in it. Tis not that I expect, by all your father's offers, to bring my friends to approve it. I don't deceive myself thus far, but I would not give them occasion to say that I hid myself from them in the doing it, nor of making my action appear more indiscreet than it is. It will concern me that all the world should know what fortune you have, and upon what terms I marry you, that both may not be made to appear ten times worse than they are. Tis the general custom of all people to make those that are rich to have more minds of gold than are in the Indies, and such as have small fortunes to be beggars. If an action takes a little in the world, it shall be magnified and brought into comparison with what the heroes or senators of Rome performed. But on the contrary, if it be once condemned, nothing can be found ill enough to compare it with. And people are in pain till they find out some extravagant expression to represent the folly on it. Only there is this difference. That as all are more forcibly inclined to do ill than good, they are much after to exceed in distraction than in praises. Have I not reason then to desire this from you, and may not my friendship have deserved it? I know not. Tis as you think. But if I be denied it, you will teach me to consider myself. Tis well beside ended here. If I had not had occasion to stop there, I might have gone too far, and showed that I had more passions than one. Yet as fit you should know all my faults, lest you should repent your bargain when twill not be in your power to release yourself. Besides, I may own my own ill-humour to you that cause it. Tis the discontent my crosses in this business have given me makes me more thus peevish. Though I say it myself, before I knew you, I was thought as well a humoured young person as most in England. Nothing displeased, nothing troubled me. When I came out of France, nobody knew me again. I was so altered from a cheerful humour that I was always alike. Never over-marry, but always pleased. I was grown heavy and sullen, bowed and discomposed, and that country which usually gives people a jolliness and gaiety that is natural to the climate had wrought in me so contrary effects that I was as new a thing to them as my clothes. If you find all this to be sad truth hereafter, remember that I gave you fair warning. Here is a ring. It must not be at all wider than this, which is rather too big for me than otherwise. But that is a good fault, and counted lucky by superstitious people. I am not so, though. Tis indifferent whether there be any word in it or not, only tis as well without, and will make my wearing it the less observed. You must give Nan leave to cut a lock of your hair for me too. Oh, my heart, what a sigh was there. I will not tell you how many this journey causes, nor the fear and apprehensions I have for you. No, I long to be rid of you. I am afraid you will not go soon enough. Do not you believe this? No, my dearest, I know you do not. Whatever you say, you cannot doubt that I am yours. Of Dorothy Osborne, Section 11 Letter 51 Sir, the lady was in the right. You are a very pretty gentleman and a modest. Were there ever such stories as these you tell? The best on it is, I believe none of them, unless it be that of my Lady Newport, which I must confess is so like her, that if it be not true, it was at least excellently well fancied. But my Lord Rich was not caught, though he was near it. My Lady Devonshire, whose daughter his first wife was, has engaged my Lord Warwick to put a stop to the business. Otherwise, I think his present want of fortune and a little sense of honour he has might have been prevailed on to marry her. It is strange to see the folly that possesses the young people of this age, and the liberty they take to themselves. I have the charity to believe they appear very much worse than they are, and that the want of a court to govern themselves by is in great part the cause of their ruin. Though that was no perfect school of virtue, yet Vice there wore her mask, and appeared so unlike herself that she gave no scandal. Such as were really discreet, as they seem to be, gave good example, and the eminency of their condition made others strive to imitate them, or at least they theirs not own a contrary cause. All who had good principles and inclinations were encouraged in them, and such as had neither were forced to put on a handsome disguise that they might not be out of countenance at themselves. To certain what you say, that where divine or human laws are not positive, we may be our own judges. Nobody can hinder us, nor is it in itself to be blamed. But, sure, it is not safe to take all liberty that is allowed us. There are not many that are sober enough to be trusted with the government of themselves, and because others judge us with more severity than our indulgence to ourselves will permit, it must necessarily follow that this safer being ruled by their opinions than by our own. I am disputing again, though you told me my fault so plainly. I'll give it over, and tell you that Bartholnessa is now my company. My brother sent it down, and I've almost read it. This handsome language, you would know it to be rid by a person of good quality, though you were not told it. But, on the whole, I'm not very much taken with it. All the stories have too near a resemblance with those of other romances. There's nothing new or superintendent in them. The ladies are all so kind to make no sport, that I meet only with one that took me by doing a handsome thing of the kind. She was in a besieged town, and persuaded all those of her sex to go out with her to the enemy, which were a barbarous people, and die by their swords, that the provisions of the town might last longer for such as were able to do service in defending it. But how angry was I to see him spoil this again, by bringing out a letter this woman left behind her for the governor of the town, where she discovers a passion for him, and makes that the reason why she did it? I confess I have no patience for our fezzers-de-romance, when they make a woman caught. It will never enter into my head that it's possible any woman can love where she is not first loved, and much less that if they should do that, they could have the face to own it. Me things, he that writes, Le Lestre Basse says well in his epistle, that we are not to imagine his hero to be less taking than those of other romances, because the ladies do not fall in love with him, whether he will or not. It would be an injury to the ladies to suppose they could do so, and the greater to his hero's civility, if he should put him upon being cruel to them, since he was to love but one. Another fault I find too, in the style, disaffected, ambitioned, is a great word with him, and ignore. My concern, or of great concern, is it seems properer than concernment, and though he makes his people say fine, handsome things to one another, yet they are not easy and naive like the French, and there is a little harshness in most of the discourse that one would take to be the fault of a translator rather than of an author. But perhaps I like it the worse for having a piece of Cyrus by me that I am hugely pleased with, and that I would fain have you read, how send it you? At least read one story that I'll mark you down, if you have time for no more. I am glad you stayed to wait on your sister. I would have my galant, civil to all, much more when it is so due, and kindness too. I have the cabinet, and is in earnest a pretty one. Though you will not own it for a present, I'll keep it as one, and it's like to be yours no more, but as this mine. I warned you'd never have thought of making me a present of charcoal, as my servant James would have done. To warm my heart, I think he meant it. But the truth is, I had been inquiring for some, as there's a commodity scarce enough in this country, and he, hearing it, told the Bailey he would give him some, if it were for me. But this is not all. I cannot forbid telling you the other day he made me a visit, and I, to prevent his making discourse to me, made Mrs. Goldsmith and Jane sit by all the while. But he came better provided than I could have imagined. He brought a letter with him, and gave it me as one he had met with, directed to me. He thought it came out of North Hamptonshire. I was upon my guard, and suspecting all he said, examined him so strictly where he had it, before I would open it, that he was hugely confounded, and I confirmed that it was his. I laid it by, and wished that they would have left us, that I might have taken notice on it to him. But I had forbidded them so strictly before, that they offered not to stir father, and to look out of window, as not thinking there was any necessity of giving us their eyes, as well as their ears. But he that saw himself discovered took that time to confess to me, in a whispering voice that I could hardly hear myself, that the letter, as my Lord Brogill says, was of great concern to him, and begged I would read it, and give him my answer. I took it up presently as if I had meant it, but through it, sealed as it was, into the fire, and told him, as softly as he had spoke to me, I thought that the quickest and best way of answering it. He said a while in great disorder, without speaking a word, and so risen took his leave. Now, what think you, shall I ever hear of him more? You do not thank me for using your rivals so scurvelly, nor are not jealous of him, though your father thinks my intentions were not handsome towards you, which me thinks is another argument that one is not to be one's own judge. For I am very confident they were, and with his favour shall never believe otherwise. I am sure I have no ends to serve of my own in what I did. It could be no advantage to me that it firmly resolved not to marry. But I thought it might be an injury to you, to keep you in expectation of what was never likely to be as I apprehended. Why do I enter into this wrangling discourse? Let your father think me what he pleases, if he ever comes to know me, the rest of my actions shall justify me in this. If he does not, I'll begin to practice on him, what you so often preach to me, to neglect the report of the world and satisfy myself in my own innocencey. We'll be pleasinger to you, I am sure, to tell you how fond I am of your luck. Well, in earnest now, and setting aside all compliments, I never saw finer hair, nor of a better colour. But cut no more on it, I would not have it spoiled for the world. If you love me, be careful on it. I am combing and curling and kissing this luck all day, and dreaming on it all night. The ring, too, is very well, only a little of the biggest. Send me a tortuous one that is a little less than that I sent for a pattern. I would not have the rule so absolutely true without exception that hard hairs be ill-natured, for then I should be so. But I can allow that all soft hairs are good, and so are you, or I am deceived as much as you are if you think I do not love you enough. Tell me, my dearest, am I? You will not be if you think I am your faithful friend and servant Dorothy Osbourne. Letter 52. Sir, they say you gave order for this waste paper. How do you think I could ever fill it, or with what? I am not always in the humour to wrangle and dispute. For example, now I would rather agree to what you say than tell you that Dr Taylor, whose devotee you must know I am, says there is a great advantage to be gained in resigning up one's will to the command of another, because the same action which in itself is wholly indifferent if done upon our own choice, becomes an act of duty and religion if done in obedience to the command of any person whom nature, the laws, or ourselves have given a power over us, so that, though in an action already done we can only be our own judges because we only know with what intentions it was done, yet in any we intend to save us sure to take the advice of another. Let me practice this to what you, as well as preach it to you, and I'll lay a wager you'll prove on it. But I'm chiefly of your opinion that contentment which the Spanish proverb says is the best paint, gives the lustre to all one's enjoyment, puts a beauty upon things which without it would have none, increases it extremely where it is already in some degree, and without it all that we call happiness besides loses its property. What is contentment must be left to every particular person to judge for themselves, since they only know what is so to them which differs in all according to their several humours. Only you and I agree this to be found by us in a true friend, a moderate fortune, and a retired life. The last I thank God I have in perfection. My cell is almost finished, and when you come back you'll find me in it, and bring me both the rest, I hope. I find it much easier to talk of your coming back than your going. You shall never persuade me I send you this journey. No, pray let it be your father's commands, or a necessity your fortune puts upon you. It was unkindly said to tell me I banish you. Your heart never told it you, I dare swear, nor mine never thought it. No, my dear, this is our last misfortune, let's bear it nobly. Nothing shows we deserve a punishment so much as our murmuring at it, and the way to lessen those we feel and to escape those we fear is to suffer patiently what is imposed, making a virtue of necessity. It is not that I have less kindness or more courage than you, but that mistrusting myself more, as I have more reason. I have armed myself all that is possible against this occasion. I have thought that there is not much difference between your being at Dublin or at London as our affairs stand. You can write and hear from the first, and I should not see you sooner if you continued still at the last. Besides, I hope this journey will be of advantage to us. When your father pressed your coming over, he told you you needed not doubt either his power or his will. Have I done anything since that deserves he should alter his intentions towards us, or has any accident lessened his power? If neither, we may hope to be happy, and the sooner for this journey. I dare not send my boy to meet you at Brighill, nor any other of the servants, they are all too talkative. But I can get Mr Gibson, if you will, to bring you a letter. This is a civil, well-natured man as can be, of excellent principles and exact honesty. I dourst make him, my confessor, though he is not obliged by his orders to conceal anything that has told him. But you must tell me, then, which Brighill it is you stop at, little or great. There are neither of them far from us. If you stay there, you ll write back by him, will you not? A long letter? I shall need it. Besides that, he owe it me for the last being so short. Would you so what letters my brother writes me? You are not half so kind. Well, he is always in the extremes. Since our last quarrel, he has courted me more than ever he did in his life, and made me more presence, which, considering his humor, is as great a testimony of his kindness as it was of Mr Smith to my Lady Sunderland, when he presented Mrs Camilla. He sent me one this week, which, in earnest, is as pretty a thing as I ve seen, a china trunk, and the finest the kind that ever I saw. By the way, this puts me in mind on it, have you read the story of China written by a Portuguese, Fernando Mendes Pinto, I think his name is? If you have not, take it with you. This is diverting a book of the kind as ever I read, and it is handsomely written. You must allow him the privilege of a traveller, and he does not abuse it. His lies are as pleasant, harmless ones as lies can be, and in no great number, considering the scope he has for them. There is one in Dublin now that never saw much farther, has told me twice as many, I dare swear, of Ireland. If I should ever live to see that country, and be in it, I should make excellent sport with them. This is a sister of my Lady Grace, her name is Pooley, her husband lives there too, but I am afraid in no very good condition. They were but poor, and she lived here with her sisters when I knew her. It is not half a year since she went, I think. If you hear of her, send me word how she makes a shift there. And Hark you, can you tell me whether the gentleman that lost the crystal box the first of February in St. James' Park, or Old Spring Gardens, has found it again or not? I have strong curiosity to know. Tell me, and I'll tell you something that you don't know, which is that I am your Valentine and you are mine. I did not think of drawing any, but Mrs. Goldsmith and Jane would need make me some, for them and myself. So I written down our three names, and for men, Mr. Fish, James B, and you. I cut them all equal, and made them up myself before them, and because I would owe it wholly to my good fortune if I were pleased, I made both of them choose first that I had never seen what was in them, and it left me you. Then I made them choose again for theirs, and my name was left. You cannot imagine how I was delighted with this little accident, but by taking notice that I cannot forbid telling you it. I was not half so pleased with my encounter next morning. I was up early, but with no design of getting another Valentine, and going out to walk in my night cloak and nightgown, I met Mr. Fish going hunting. I think he was. But he stayed to tell me I was his Valentine, and I should not have been rid on him quickly if he had not thought himself a little too negligee. His hair was not powdered, and his clothes were but ordinary. To say truth, he looked then me thought like other mortal people. Yet he was as handsome as your Valentine. I'll swear you wanted one when you took her, and had very ill fortune that nobody met you before her. Oh, if I had not terrified my little gentleman when he brought me his own letter, now sure I had had him for my Valentine. On my conscience I shall follow your counsel if ever he comes again, but I am persuaded he will not. I rid my brother that story for want of something else, and he says I did very well. There was no other way to be rid on him, and he makes a remark upon it that I can be severe enough when I please, and wish as I would practice it somewhere else, as well as there. Can you tell where that is? I never understand anybody that does not speak plain English, and he never uses that to me of late, but tells me the finest stories. I may apply them how I please, of people that have married when they thought there was great kindness, and how miserably they have found themselves deceived, how despicable they have made themselves by it, and how sadly they have repented on it. He reckons more inconvenience than you do that follows good nature, says it makes one credulous, apt to be abused, betrays one to the cunning of people that make advantage on it, and a thousand such things which I hear half asleep and half awake, and take little notice of, unless it be sometimes to say that with all these faults I would not be without it. No, in earnest, nor I could not love any person that I thought had it not to a good degree. It was the first thing I liked in you, and without it I should never have liked anything. I know it is counted simple, but I cannot imagine why. This true some people have it that have not wit, but there are at least as many foolish people I have ever observed to be foolish of tricks, little ugly plots and designs, unnecessary disguises, and mean cunnings which are the basest qualities in the world, and makes one the most contemptible, I think. When I once discover them, they lose their credit with me for ever. Some will say they are cunning only in their own defence, and that there is no living in this world without it, but I cannot understand how anything more is necessary to one's own safety besides a prudent caution. That I now think is, though I can remember, when nobody could have persuaded me that anybody meant ill when it did not appear by their words and actions. I remember my mother, who, if it may be allowed me to say it, was counted as wise a woman as most in England, when she seemed to distrust anybody, and so I took notice on it, would ask if I did not think her too jealous and a little ill-natured. Come, I know you do, says she, if you confess it, and I cannot blame you. When I was young as you are, I thought my father-in-law, who was a wise man, the most unreasonably suspicious man that ever was, and disliked him for it hugely, but I have lived to see it is almost impossible to think people worse than they are, and so will you. I did not believe her, unless that I should have more to say to you than this paper would hold. It shall never be said I began another at this time of night. No, I have spent this idly, that should have told you, with a little more circumstance, how perfectly I am your faithful friend and servant Dorothy Osbourne. Let her fifty-three. Sir, this well you've given over your approaches, I can allow you to tell me of my faults kindly and like a friend. Possibly there's a weakness in me to aim at the world's esteem, as if I could not be happy without it, but there are certain things that custom has made almost of absolute necessity, and the reputation I take to be one of these. If one could be invisible, I should choose that, but since all people are seen or known and shall be talked of in spite of their teeth, who is it that does not desire at least that nothing of ill may be said of them, whether justly or otherwise? I never knew any so satisfied with their own innocence as to be content that the world should think them guilty. Some out of pride have seemed to condemn ill reports when they have found they could not avoid them, but none out of strength of reason, though many have pretended to it. No, not my Lady Newcastle, with all her philosophy. Therefore you must not expect it from me. I shall never be ashamed to own that I have a particular value for you above any other, but this not the greatest merit of person will excuse or want the fortune. In some degree I think it will, at least, with the most rational part of the world, and, as far as that will read, I desire it should. I would not have the world believe I married out of interest and to please my friends. I had much rather they should know I chose the person and took his fortune because those necessary, and that I prefer a competency with one eye esteem infinitely before a vast estate in other hands. It is much easier, sure, to get a good fortune than a good husband, but whosoever marries without any consideration of fortune shall never be allowed to do it, but of so reasonable an apprehension the whole world without any reserve shall pronounce they did it merely to satisfy their giddy humour. Besides, though you imagine to a great argument of my kindness to consider nothing but you, in earnest I believe to be an injury to you. I do not see that it puts any value upon men when women marry them for love as they term it. It is not their merit, but our folly that is always presumed to cause it, and would it be any advantage to you to have your wife thought to be an indiscreet person? All this I can say to you, but when my brother disputes it with me I have other arguments for him, and I drove him up so close the other night that for want of a better gap to get out it he was faint to see that he feared as much you're having a fortune as you're having none, for he saw you held my Lord Lieutenant's principles, that religion and honour were things you did not consider at all, and that he was confident you would take any engagement, serve an employment, or do anything to advance yourself. I had no patience for this. To say you were a beggar, your father not worth four thousand pounds in the whole world was nothing in comparison of having no religion nor no honour. I forgot all my disguise, and we talked ourselves wary. He renounced me, and I defied him, but both in a civil language I would permit, and parted in great anger with the usual ceremony of a leg and a curtsy, that he would have died with laughing to have seen us. The next day I, not being a dinner, saw him not till night. Then he came into my chamber, where I subbed, but he did not. Afterwards Mr. Gibson had he and I talked off in different things till all but we too went to bed. Then he said half an hour, and said not one word, nor I to him. At last, in a pitiful tone, Sister, says he, I've heard you say that when anything troubles you, of all things you apprehend going to bed, because there it increases upon you, and you lie at the mercy of all your sad thought, which the silence and darkness of the night adds a horror to. I am at that pass now. I vow to God I would not endure another night like the last to gain a crown. I, who resolved to take no notice what ailed him, said it was a knowledge I'd raised from my spleen only, and so fell into a discourse of melancholy and the causes, and from that, I know not how, interreligion, and we talked so long of it, and so devoutly, that it laid all our anger. We grew to a calm and peace with all the world. Two hermets conversing in a cell they equally inhabit, never expressed more humble, charitable kindness, one towards another than we. He asked my pardon and I his, and he has promised me never to speak of it to me whilst he lives, but leave the event to God Almighty. Until he sees it done, he will always be the same to me that he is. Then he shall leave me, he says, not out of want of kindness to me, but because he cannot see the ruin of a person that he loves so passionately, and in whose happiness he has laid up all his. These are the terms we are at, and I am confident he will keep his word with me, so that you have no reason to fear him in any respect. For though he should break his promise, he should never make me break mine. No, let me assure you this rival, nor any other, shall ever alter me. Therefore, spare your jealousy, or turn it all into kindness. I will write every week, and no miss of letters shall give us any doubts of one another. Time nor accidents shall not prevail upon our hearts, and if God Almighty pleased blesses, we will meet the same we are, or happier. I will do all you bid me. I will pray and wish and hope, but you must do so too, then, and be so careful of yourself that I may have nothing to reproach you with when you come back. That vile wench lets you see all my scribbles, I believe. How do you know I took care your hair should not be spoiled? It is more than error you did, I think. You are so negligent on it, and keep it so ill, this pity you should have it. May you have better luck in the cutting it than I had with mine. I cut it two or three years ago, and it never grew since. Look to it. If I keep the lock you give me better than you do all the rest, I shall not spare you. Expect to be soundly chidden. What do you mean to do with all my letters? Leave them behind you? If you do, it must be in safe hands. Some of them concern you and me, and other people besides us very much, and they will almost load a horse to carry. Does not my cousin at Moore Park distress us a little? I have a great belief they do. I am sure Robin C. told my brother of it since I was last in town. Of all things, I admire my cousin Molly as not guarded by the end. He that frequents that family so much and is at this instant at Kimberton. If he has, and conceals it, he is very discreet. I could never discern by anything that he knew it. I shall endeavor to accustom myself to the noise on it, and make it as easy to me as I can, though I had much rather it were not talked of till there were an absolute necessity of discovering it, and you can oblige me in nothing more than in concealing it. I take it very kindly that you promise to use all your interest in your father to persuade him to endeavor our happiness, and he appears so confident of his power that it gives me great hopes. Dear, shall we ever be so happy, thank you? Ah, I dare not hope it. Yet there's not one of love giving me these fears. No, in earnest, I think, nay, I'm sure, I love you more than ever, and this that only gives me these despairing thoughts. When I consider how small a proportion of happiness is allowed in this world, and how great mine would be in a person for whom I have a passionate kindness, and who has the same for me. As it is infinitely above what I can deserve, and more than God Almighty usually allots to the best people, I can find nothing in reason but seems to be against me. And, me things, it is as vain in me to expect it as to be to hope I might be a queen, if that were really as desirable a thing as disthought to be. And it is just that it should be so. We complain of this world, and the variety of crosses and afflictions it abounds in, and yet for all this who is wary on it, more than in this cause, who thinks with pleasure of leaving it, or preparing for the next? We see old folks who have outlived all the conference of life desire to continue in it, and nothing can wean us from the folly of preferring a mortal being subject to great infirmity and unavoidable decays before an immortal one, and all the glories that are promised with it. Is this not very like preaching? Well, just too good for you. You shall have no more on it. I am afraid you are not mortified enough for such discourse to work upon, though I am not of my brother's opinion, neither, that you have no religion in you. In earnest I never took anything he ever said, half so ill, as nothing, sure, is so great an injury. It must suppose one to be a devil in human shape. Oh, me, now I am speaking of religion, let me ask you, is not his name back sure that you say rails on love and women? Because I heard one the other day speaking of him, and commanding his wit, but with all said he was a perfect atheist. If so, I can allow him to hate us, and love, which sure has something of a divine in it, since God requires it of us. I am coming into my preaching vein again. What think you, were it not a good way of preferment as the times are? If you'll advise me to it, I'll venture. The woman at Somerset House was cried up mightily. Think on it. Dear, I am your faithful friend and servant, Dorothy Osborne. LESTER 54 FOR YOUR MASTER, SEAL WITH CODE OF ARMS, WHEN YOUR MRES PLEASES Sir, you bid me right every week, and I am doing it without considering how it will come to you. Let Nan look to that, with whom I suppose you have left the orders of conveyance. I have your last letter, but Jane, to whom you refer me, is not yet come down. On Tuesday I expect her, and if she be not engaged I shall give her no cause hereafter to believe that she is a burden to me, though I have no employment for her but that of talking to me when I am in the humour of saying nothing. Your dog has come to, and I have received him with all the kindness that is due to anything you send. I have defended him from the envy and malice of a troop of greyhounds that used to be in favour with me, and he is so sensible of my care over him that he is pleased with nobody else and follows me as if we had been of long acquaintance. Tis well you are gone past my recovery. My heart has filled me twenty times since you went, and had you been within my call I had brought you back as often, though I know thirty miles distance and three hundred are the same thing. You'll be so kind I'm sure as to ride back by the coach and tell me what the success of your journey so far has been. After that I expect no more, unless you stay for a wind till you arrive at Dublin. I pity your sister in earnest. A sea voyage is welcome to no lady, but you are beaten to it, and will become you, now you are a conductor, to show your veller and keep your company in hand. When you think of coming back again, I'm asking that before you are at your journey's end. You will not take it ill that I desire it should be soon. In the meantime, I'll practice all the rules you gave me. Who told you I go to bed late? In earnest, they do me wrong. I've been faulty in that point here to four, I confess, but it's a good while since I gave it over with my reading on nights. But in the daytime I cannot live without it, and is all my diversion, and infinitely more pleasing to me than any company, but yours. And yet I'm not given to it in any excess now. I've been very much more. This Jane I know tells all these tales of me. I shall be even with her some time or other. But for the present I long for her with some impatience, that she may tell me all you have told her. Never trust me if I had not a suspicion from the first that was that ill-looked fellow bee who made that story, Mr. D., told you. That which gave me the first inclination to that belief was the circumstance you told me of their seeing me at St. Gregory's. For I remembered to have seen B. there, and had occasioned to look up into the gallery, where he said to answer a very civil salute given me from thence by Mr. Freeman, and saw B. in a great whisper with another that sat next to him and pointed to me. If Mr. D. had not been so nice in discovering his name, you would quickly have been cured of your jealousy. Never believe I have a servant that I do not tell you of as soon as I know it myself. As, for example, my brother Payton has sent to me, for a countryman of his, Sir John Tufton. He married one of my Lady Wharton's heirs, whose lady dead, and to invite me to think of it. Besides his person and his fortune, with that exception, he tells me what an excellent husband he was to this lady that dead, who was but a crooked ill-favoured woman. Only she brought him fifteen hundred pounds a year. I tell him I believe Sir John Tufton could be content. I were so too upon the same terms. But his loving his first wife can be no argument to persuade me. For if he had loved her as he ought to do, I cannot hope he should love another so well as I expect anybody should that has me. And if he did not love her, I have less to expect he should me. I do not care for a divided heart. I must have all or none, at least the first place in it. Poor James, I have broke his. He says it would pity you to hear what sad complaints he makes, and, but that he has not the heart to hang himself, he would be very well contented to be out of the world. That house of your cousin R is fatal to physicians. Dr. Smith, that took it, is dead already. But maybe this was before you went, and so is no news to you. I shall be sending you all I hear, which, though it cannot be much, living as I do, yet it may be more than ventures into Ireland. I would have you diverted, whilst you are there, as much as possible, but not enough to tempt you to stay one minute longer than your father and your business obliges you. Alas! I have already repented all my share in your journey, and begin to find I am not half so valiant as I sometimes take myself to be. The knowledge that our interests are the same, and that I shall be happy or unfortunate in your person as much or more than in my own, does not give me that confidence you speak of. It rather increases my doubts, and I dares trust your fortune alone, rather than now that mine is joined with it. Yet I will hope yours may be so good as to overcome the ill of mine, and shall endeavour to mend my own all I can by striving to deserve it maybe better. My dearest, will you pardon me that I am forced to leave you so soon? The next shall be longer, though I can never be more than I am your faithful friend and servant Dorothy Osbourne. Letter 55, March the 18th, 1654 How true it is that a misfortune never comes single. We live in expectation of some one happiness that we propose to ourselves, an age almost, and perhaps miss it at the last, but sad accidents have wings to overtake us, and come in flux like ill-boding ravens. You were no sooner gone, but, as if that had not been enough, I lost the best father in the world, and, though, as to himself, it was an infinite mercy in God Almighty to take him out of a world that can be pleasing to none, and was made more uneasy to him by many infirmities that were upon him. Yet to me it is an affliction much greater than people judge it, besides all that is due to nature and the memory of many more than ordinary kindnesses received from him. Besides what he was to all that knew him and what he was to me in particular, I am left by his death in the condition which of all others is the most unsupportable to my nature, to repent upon kindred that are not friends, and that, though I pay as much as I should do to a stranger, yet think they do me a curtsy. I expect my eldest brother to-day. If he comes I shall be able to tell you before I seal this up where you are likely to find me. If he offers me to stay here, this whole will be more agreeable to my humour than any place that is more in the world. I take it kindly that he used art to conceal our story and satisfy my nice apprehensions, but I'll not impose that constrained upon you any longer, for I find my kind brother publishes it with more earnestness than ever I strove to conceal it, and with more disadvantage than anybody else would. Now he has tried all ways to do what he desires and finds it is in vain, he resolves to revenge himself upon me by representing this action in such colours as will amaze all people that know me, and do not know him enough to discern his malice to me. He's not able to forbear showing it now, when my condition deserves pity from all the world I think, and that he himself has newly lost a father as well as I, but takes this time to torment me, which appears, at least to me, so barbarous a cruelty, that though I thank God I have charity enough perfectly to forgive all the injury he can do me, yet I am afraid I shall never look upon him as a brother more. And now do you judge whether I am not very unhappy, and whether that sadness in my face you used to complain of was not suited to my fortune. You must confess it, and that my kindness for you is beyond example. All these troubles are persecutions that make me wary of the world before my time, and lessen the concernment I have for you, and instead of being persuaded as they would have me by their malicious stories, we think I am obliged to love you more in recompense of all the injuries they have done you upon my score. I shall need nothing but my own heart to fortify me in this resolution, and desire nothing in return of it but that your care of yourself may answer to that which I shall always have for your interests. I received your letter of the tenth of this month, and I hope this will find you at your journey's end. In earnest I have pitted your sister extremely, and can easily apprehend how troublesome this voyage must need be to her by knowing what others have been to me. Yet, pray assure her I would not scruple at undertaking it myself to gain such an acquaintance, and would go much farther than where I hope she now is to serve her. I am afraid she will not think me a fit person to choose for a friend that cannot agree with my own brother, but I must trust you to tell my story for me, and will hope for a better character from you than he gives me, who, lest I should complain, resolves to prevent me, and possess my friends first that he is the injured party. I never magnified my patience to you, but I begin to have a good opinion on it since this trial. Yet, perhaps I have no reason, and it may be as well a want of sense in me as of passion. However, you will not be displeased to know that I can endure all that he or anybody else can say, and that setting aside my father's death and your absence I make nothing an affliction to me, though I am sorry, I confess, to see myself forced to keep such distances with one of his relations, because religion and nature and the custom of the world teaches otherwise. I see I shall not be able to satisfy you in this how I shall dispose of myself, for my brother is not come. The next will certainly tell you. In the meantime, I expect with great impatience to hear of your safer rival. It was a disappointment that you missed those fair wins. I pleased myself extremely with the belief that they have made your journey rather a diversion than a trouble, either to you or your company, but I hope your passage was as happy if not as sudden as you expected it. Let me hear often from you and long let us. I do not count this so. Have no apprehensions for me, but all the care of yourself that you please. My melancholy has no anger in it, and I believe the excellence of my life would work more upon any other than they do upon me, whose humour is always more prepared for them than that of gayer persons. I hear nothing that is worth your knowing. When I do, you shall know it. Tell me, if there is anything I can do for you, and assure yourself, I am perfectly your faithful friend and servant, Dorothy Osborne. CHAPTER XII Sir, there was never any lady more surprised than I was with your last. I read it so coldly and was so troubled to find that you were so forward on your journey. But when I came to the last and saw Dublin at the date, I could scarce believe my eyes. In earnest it transported me so that I could not forbear expressing my joy in such a manner as had anybody been by to have observed me, they would have suspected me no very sober person. Your save arrived, you say, and pleased with the place already, only because you meet with a letter of mine there. In your next I expect some other commendation on it, or else I shall hardly make such haste to it as people here believe I will. All the servants have been to take their leaves on me, and say how sorry they are to hear I am going out of the land. Some beggar at the door has made so ill a report of Ireland to them that they pity me extremely. But you are pleased, I hope, to hear I am coming to you. The next fair wind expect me. Does not be imagined the ridiculous stories they have made, nor how J.B. cries out on me for refusing him and choosing his chamberfellow. Yet he pities me too, and swears I am condemned to be the miserableest person upon earth. Would always quarrel to me, he does not wish me so ill as to be married to the proudest, imperious, insulting, ill-natured man that ever was. One that before he has had me a week shall use me with contempt, and believe that the favour was of his side. He is not this very comfortable. But pray make it no crawl. I make it none, I assure you. And though he knew you before I did, I do not think he knows you so well. Besides that, his testimony is not of much value. I am to spend this next week in taking leave of this country, and all the company in it, perhaps never deceived more. From hence I must go into Northamptonshire to my Lady Ruthen, and so to London, where I shall find my aunt and my brother Payton, betwixt whom I think to divide this summer. Nothing has happened since you went, worth your knowledge. My Lord Marquise Hartford has lost his son, my Lord Beauchamp, who has left a fine young widow. In earnest this great pity, at the rate of our young nobility, he was an extraordinary person, and remarkable for an excellent husband. My Lord Camden, too, has fought with Mr. Stafford, but there is no harm done. You may discern the haste I am in by my writing. There will come a time for a long letter again, but there will never come anywhere in I shall not be, your faithful friend and servant, Dorothy Osbourne, sealed with black wax and directed for Mr. William Temple at Sir John Temple's home in the Masked Street, Dublin. CHAPTER 57. LETTER OF SIR WILLIAM TEMPLE. MAY 18TH, 1654. I am called upon for my letter, but must have leave first to remember you of yours. For God's sake, write constantly while I am here, or I am undone past all recovery. I have lived upon them ever since I came, but had thrived much better had they been longer. Unless you used to give me better measure, I shall not be encased to undertake a journey to England. The despair I was in at not hearing from you last week, and the belief that all my letters had miscarried, by some treachery among my good friends, who, I am sorry, have the name of yours, made me press my father by all means imaginable to give me leave to go presently if I heard not from you this post. But it would never yield to that, because, he said, upon your silence, he should suspect all was not likely to be well between us, and then he was sure I should not be in condition to be alone. He remembered too well the letters I read upon our last unhappy differences, and would not trust me from him in such another occasion. But with all he told me he would never give me occasion for any discontent which he could remedy, that if you desired my coming over, and I could not be content without, he would not hinder me, though he very much desired my company a month or two longer, and that in that time it was very likely I might have his as well. Now, in very good earnest, do you think this time for me to come, or no? Would you be very glad to see me there? And could you do it in less this order, and with less surprise than you did at Chickson's? I ask you these questions very seriously, but yet how willingly would I venture all to be with you? I know you love me still, you promised me, and that's all the security I can have in this world. Does that, which makes all things else, seem nothing to it? So high it sets me, and so high indeed, that should I ever fault would dash me all to pieces? Me thinks your very charity should make you love me more now than ever, by seeing me so much more unhappy than I used, by being so much farther from you, for that is all the measure can be taken of my good or ill condition. Just as I am sure will oblige you to it, since you have no other means left in the world of rewarding such a passion as mine, which sure is of a much richer value than anything in the world besides. Should you save my life again? Should you make me absolute master of your fortune and your person, too? I should accept none of all this in any part of payment, but look upon you as one behindhand with me still. It is no vanity this, but a true sense of how pure and how refined a nature my passion is, which none can ever know except my own heart, unless you find it out by being there. How hard it is to think of ending when I'm writing to you. But it must be so, and I must ever be subject to other people's occasions, and so never I think master of my own. This is too true, both in respect of this fellow's post that is bowling at me for my letter, and of my father's delays. They kill me, but patience, with anybody but I were here. Yet you may command me ever at one minute's warning. Had I not heard from you by this last, it earnest I'd resolved to have gone with this, and had given my father to slip for all his caution. He tells me still of a little time. But, alas, who knows not what mischances and how great changes have often happened in a little time? For God's sake, let me hear of all your emotions, when and where I may hope to see you. Let us but hope this cloud, this absence that has overcast all my contentment, may pass away, and I am confident there is a clear sky atensis. My dearest dear, adieu, your friend and servant, William Temple. Pray, where is your lodging? Have a care of all the dispatch and security that can be in our intelligence. Remember my fellow servant. Sure, by the next I shall write some learned epistle to her. I've been so long about it. Letter 58, May 25th, 1654. This world is composed of nothing but contrarities and sudden accidents. Only the proportions are not at all equal. For to a great measure of trouble it allows so small a quantity of joy that one may see this merely intended to keep us alive with all. This is a formal preface, and looks as if there were something of very useful to follow. But I would not wish you to expect it. I was only considering my own ill-humour last night. I had not heard from you in a week or more. My brother had been with me, and we had talked to ourselves both out of breath and patience too. I was not very well, and rose this morning only because I was wary of lying in bed. When I had dined I took a coach and went to see whether there was ever a letter from me, and was this once so lucky as to find one. I am not partial to myself, I know, and am contented that the pleasure I have received with this shall serve to sweeten many sad thoughts that have interposed since your last, and more that I may reasonably expect before I have another. And I think I may, without vanity, say that nobody is more sensible of the least good fortune nor murmurs less at an ill than I do, since I owe it merely to custom and not to any constancy in my humour, or something that is better. No, in earnest, anything of good comes to me like the sun to the inhabitants of Greenland. It raises them to life when they see it, and when they miss it, it is not strange they expect a night of half a year long. You cannot imagine how kindly I take it that you forgive my brother, and let me assure you I shall never press you to anything unreasonable. I will not oblige you to court a person that has injured you. I only beg that whatsoever he does in that kind may be excused by his relation to me, and that whenever you are moved to think he does you wrong, you will at the same time remember that his sister loves you passionately and nobly, that if he values nothing but fortune she despises it, and could love you as much a beggar as she could do a prince, and shall without question love you eternally, but whether with any satisfaction to herself or you is a sad doubt. I am not apt to hope, and whether it be the better or the worse I know not. All sorts of differences are natural to me, and that which, if your kindness would give you leave, you would term a weakness in me is nothing but a reasonable distrust of my own judgment which makes me desire the approbation of my friends. I never had the confidence in my life to presume anything well done that I had nobody's opinion in but my own, and as you very well observe there are so many that think themselves wise when nothing equals their folly but their pride that I dread nothing so much as discovering such a thought in myself because of the consequences of it. Whenever you come you must not doubt your welcome, but I can promise you nothing for the manner on it. I am afraid my surprise in this order will be more than ever. I have good reason to think so, and none that you can take ill, but I would not have you attempted till your father is ready for the journey too. No, really he deserves that all your occasions should wait for his, and if you have not much more than an ordinary obedience for him I shall never believe you have more than an ordinary kindness for me. Since, if you will pardon me the comparison, I believe we both married it from you upon the same school. He has a very indulgent father, and I as a very kind mistress. Don't laugh at me for commending myself. You will never do it for me, and so I am forced to it. I am still here in town, but at no hand I can assure you in the new discovered plot against the Protector. But my Lord of Dorchester as they say has, and so might I have had if I were as rich as he, and then he might have been sure of me at the tower. Now a worse lodging must serve my turn. It is over against the Salisbury House, where I have the honour of seeing my Lady M. Sandis every day, unless some race or other carrier out of town. The last week she went to one as far as Winchester, with Colonel Ponton, if he knows such a one, and there her husband met her, and because he did so, though it were by accident, thought himself obliged to invite her to his house but seven miles off, and very modestly said no more for it, but that he thought it better than an inn, or at least a crowded one, as all in the town were now because of the race. But she was so good a companion that she would not forsake her company, so he invited them too, but could prevail with neither. Only my Lady grew kind at parting, and said, indeed if Tom Ponton and J. Morton and the rest would have gone, she could have been contented to have taken his offer. Thus much for the married people, now for those that are towards it. There is Mr. Stanley and Mrs. Witherington, Sir H. Littleton and Mrs. Philadelphia Carey, who in earnest is a fine woman, such a one as will make an excellent wife, and some say my Lord Rich and my Lady Betty Howard, but others that pretend to know more, say his court to her is but the countenance a more serious one to Mrs. Howard, her sister-in-law. He not have encouraged to pretend so openly, as some do, to another's wife. Oh, but your old acquaintance, poor Mr. Henningham, has no luck. He was so near, as he thought at least, marrying Mrs. Gerard, that anybody might have got his whole estate in wages upon it that would have ventured but a reasonable proportion of their own. And now he looks more like an ass than ever he did. She has cast him off most unhandsomely, that's the truth on it, and would have tied him to such conditions as he might have been her slave with all, but could never be her husband. Is not this a great deal of news for me that never stir abroad? Nay, I brought me to-day more than all this, that I am marrying myself, and the pleasantness on it is that it should be to my Lord St. John. Would he look on me, think you, that I had pretty Mrs. Fratchville? My comfort is I have not seen him since he was a widower, and never spoke to him in my life. I found myself so innocent that I never blushed when they told it me. What would I give? I could avoid it when people speak of you. In earnest, I do prepare myself all that is possible to hear it spoken of, yet for my life I cannot hear your name without discovering that I am more than ordinarily concerned in it. A blush is the foolishest thing that can be, and betrays one more than a red nose does a drunkard, and yet I would not so holy have lost them as some women that I know has as much injury as they do me. I can assure you now that I shall be here a fortnight longer. They tell me no lodger upon pain of his highness's displeasure must remove Suna. But when I have his leave I go into Suffolk for a month, and then come hither again to go into Kent, where I intend to bury myself alive again as I did in Bethershire, unless you call me out and tell me I may be happy. Alas, how faint I would hope it, but I cannot, and should it ever happen, it would be long before I should believe it was meant for me in earnest, or that it was other than a dream. To say truth I do not love to think on it. I find so many things to fear and so few to hope. It is better telling you that I will send my letters where you direct, that they shall be as long ones as possibly my time will permit, and when at any time you miss of one I give you leave to imagine as many kind things as you please, and to believe I mean them all to you. Farewell, your faithful friend and servant, Dorothy Osbourne. Leather 59, June the 6th, 1654. I see you know how to punish me. In earnest I was so frightened with your short letter as you cannot imagine, and as much troubled as the cause on it. What is it, your father ills, and how long has he been ill? If my prayers are heard he will not be so long. Why do you say I failed you? Indeed I did not. Jane is my witness. She carried my letters to the White Heart by St. James's, and was a very long one, too. I carried one thither since myself, and the woman of the house was so very angry because I desired her to have a care on it, that I made the coachman drive away with all possible speed that she should have beaten me. To say truth I pressed her too much, considering how little the letter deserved it. It was written such disorder, the company praising about me, and some of them so bent on doing me little mischiefs, that I know not what I did, and believe it was the most senseless, disjointed thing that ever was read. I remember now that I read Robin Spencer instead of Will, this he that has married Mrs. Gerd, and I admire their courage. She will have eight hundred pounds a year is true after her mother's death, but how they will live till then I cannot imagine. I shall be even with you for your short letter. I'll swear they will not allow me time for anything, and to show how absolutely I am governed I need but tell you that I am every night in the park and at New Spring Gardens, where though I come with a mask I cannot escape being known, nor my conversion being admired. Are you not in some fear what will become on me? These are dangerous causes. I do not find though that they have altered me yet. I much the same person at heart I was in being your faithful friend and servant Dorothy Osbourne. You satisfied me very much with this last long letter and made some amends for the short one I received before. I am convinced too, happiness is much such a kind of thing as you describe, or rather such a nothing. For there is no one thing can properly be called so, but everyone is left to create it to themselves in something which they either have or would have, and so far it's well enough. But I do not like to think that one's happiness should depend upon a persuasion that this is happiness, because nobody knows how long they shall continue in a belief built upon no grounds only to bring it to what you say, and to make it absolutely of the same nature with faith. We must conclude that nobody can either create or continue such a belief in themselves. But where it is there is happiness. And for my part at this present I verily believe I could find it in a long walk at Dublin. You say nothing of your father's sickness, therefore I hope he is well again. For though I have a quarrel to him it does not extend so far as to wish him ill. But he made no good return for the counsel I gave you to say that there might come a time when my kindness might fail. Do not believe him I charge you, unless you doubt yourself that you may give me occasion to change, and when he tells you so again engage what you please upon it, and put it upon my account. I shall go out of town this week, and so cannot possibly get a picture drawn for you till I come up again, which will be within these six weeks, but not to make any stay at all. I should be glad to find you here then. I would have had one drawn since I came, and consulted my glass every morning when to begin. And to speak freely to you that are my friend, I could never find my face in a condition to admit on it. And when I was not satisfied with it myself, I had no reason to hope that anybody else should. But I am afraid, as you say, that time will not mend it, and therefore you shall have it as it is as soon as Mr. Cooper will vouch safe to take the pain to draw it for you. I am in great trouble to think how I shall write out of Suffolk to you, or receive yours. However, do not fail to write, though they lie a while. I shall have them at last, and they will not be the less welcome, and though you should miss of some of mine, let it not trouble you. But if it be by my fault, I'll give you leave to demand satisfaction for it when you come. Jane kisses your hands, and says she'll be ready in all places to do you service. But I'll prevent her, now you have put me into a jealous humour. I'll keep her in chains before she subquits scores with me. Do not believe, sir, I beseech you, that the young heirs are for you. Content yourself with your old mistress. You are not so handsome as Will Spencer, nor have I not so much courage nor wealth as his mistress, nor she has not so much as her aunt says by all the money. I shall not have called her his mistress, now they have been married almost this fortnight. I'll write again before I leave the town, and she would have written more now, but company has come in. Adieu, my dearest.