heads instead of its' hearts, where should we have been now? Hanging
on a gallows as high as Hainan's. You began to calculate, and to compare
wealth and numbers: we threw up a few pulsations of our blood; we
supplied enthusiasm against wealth and numbers; we put our existence to
the hazard, when the hazard seemed against us, and we saved our country:
justifying, at the same time, the ways of Providence, whose precept is,
to do always what is right, and leave the issue to him. In short, my
friend, as far as my recollection serves me, I do not know that I ever
did a good thing on your suggestion, or a dirty one without it. I do for
ever, then, disclaim your interference in my province. Fill paper as you
please with triangles and squares: try how many ways you can hang and
combine them together. I shall never envy nor control your sublime
delights. But leave me to decide when and where friendships are to be
contracted. You say I contract them at random. So you said the woman at
Philadelphia was a drunkard. I receive none into my esteem, till I know
they are worthy of it. Wealth, title, office, are no recommendations to
my friendship. On the contrary, great good qualities are requisite to
make amends for their having wealth, title, and office. You confess,
that, in the present case, I could not have made a worthier choice.
You only object, that I was so soon to lose them. We are not immortal
ourselves, my friend; how can we expect our enjoyments to be so? We have
no rose without its thorn; no pleasure without alloy. It is the law of
our existence; and we must acquiesce. It is the condition annexed to all
our pleasures, not by us who receive, but by him who gives them. True,
this condition is pressing cruelly on me at this moment. I feel more fit
for death than life. But when I look back on the pleasures of which
it is the consequence, I am conscious they were worth the price I am
paying. Notwithstanding your endeavors, too, to damp my hopes, I comfort
myself with expectations of their promised return. Hope is sweeter than
despair; and they were too good to mean to deceive me. 'In the summer,'
said the gentleman; but 'In the spring,' said the lady; and I should
love her for ever, were it only for that! Know, then, my friend, that I
have taken these good people into my bosom; that I have lodged them in
the warmest cell I could find; that I love them, and will continue to
love them through life; that if fortune should dispose th