liam Verville's, who is at Bath; I will write,
and inclose the letter to him this evening; you shall have his answer
the moment I receive it.

We are going to dine at Richmond with Lord H----.

Adieu! my dear Rivers; Bell complains you have never answered her
letter: I own, I thought you a man of more gallantry than to neglect a
lady.

Adieu!
Your faithful
J. Fitzgerald.

LETTER 209.

To Captain Fitzgerald.

Bellfield, Oct. 30.

I am very impatient, my dear friend, till you hear from Sir William,
though I have no doubt of his acting as he ought: our cottagers shall
not leave us till their fate is determined; I have not told Miss
Williams the step I have taken.

Emily is more and more pleased with this amiable girl: I wish
extremely to be able to keep her here; as an agreable companion of her
own age and sex, whose ideas are similar, and who, from being in the
same season of life, sees things in the same point of view, is all that
is wanting to Emily's happiness.

'Tis impossible to mention similarity of ideas, without observing
how exactly ours coincide; in all my acquaintance with mankind, I
never yet met a mind so nearly resembling my own; a tie of affection
much stronger than all your merit would be without that similarity.

I agree with you, that mankind are born virtuous, and that it is
education and example which make them otherwise.

The believing other men knaves is not only the way to make them so,
but is also an infallible method of becoming such ourselves.

A false and ill-judged method of instruction, by which we imbibe
prejudices instead of truths, makes us regard the human race as beasts
of prey; not as brothers, united by one common bond, and promoting the
general interest by pursuing our own particular one.

There is nothing of which I am more convinced than that,

"True self-love and social are the same:"

That those passions which make the happiness of individuals tend
directly to the general good of the species.

The beneficent Author of nature has made public and private
happiness the same; man has in vain endeavored to divide them; but in
the endeavor he has almost destroyed both.

'Tis with pain I say, that the business of legislation in most
countries seems to have been to counter-work this wise order of
providence, which has ordained, that we shall make others happy in
being so ourselves.

This is in nothing so glaring as in the point on which