and, and
then can make him write a much more sensible letter than this that he has
now sent me.

Thou knowest, that an adroitness in the art of manual imitation, was one
of my earliest attainments. It has been said, on this occasion, that had
I been a bad man in meum and tuum matters, I should not have been fit to
live. As to the girls, we hold it no sin to cheat them. And are we not
told, that in being well deceived consists the whole of human happiness?

WEDNESDAY, MAY 31.

All still happier and happier. A very high honour done me: a chariot,
instead of a coach, permitted, purposely to indulge me in the subject of
subjects.

Our discourse in this sweet airing turned upon our future manner of life.
The day is bashfully promised me. Soon was the answer to my repeated
urgency. Our equipage, our servants, our liveries, were parts of the
delightful subject. A desire that the wretch who had given me
intelligence out of the family (honest Joseph Leman) might not be one of
our menials; and her resolution to have her faithful Hannah, whether
recovered or not; were signified; and both as readily assented to.

Her wishes, from my attentive behaviour, when with her at St. Paul's,*
that I would often accompany her to the Divine Service, were greatly
intimated, and as readily engaged for. I assured her, that I ever had
respected the clergy in a body; and some individuals of them (her Dr.
Lewen for one) highly: and that were not going to church an act of
religion, I thought it [as I told thee once] a most agreeable sight to
see rich and poor, all of a company, as I might say, assembled once a
week in one place, and each in his or her best attire, to worship the God
that made them. Nor could it be a hardship upon a man liberally
educated, to make one on so solemn an occasion, and to hear the harangue
of a man of letters, (though far from being the principal part of the
service, as it is too generally looked upon to be,) whose studies having
taken a different turn from his own, he must always have something new to
say.

* See Vol. IV. Letter V.
** Ibid.

She shook her head, and repeated the word new: but looked as if willing
to be satisfied for the present with this answer. To be sure, Jack, she
means to do great despight to his Satanic majesty in her hopes of
reforming me. No wonder, therefore, if he exerts himself to prevent her,
and to be revenged. But how came this in!--I am ever of party against
myself