ten again and again.--Love him a
little!--It would be a kind of separation, if you did not love those I
love.

There was so much considerate tenderness in your epistle to-night, that,
if it has not made you dearer to me, it has made me forcibly feel how
very dear you are to me, by charming away half my cares.

Yours affectionately

* * * *

* * * * *

LETTER IX.

Tuesday Morning [December 31.]

THOUGH I have just sent a letter off, yet, as captain ---- offers to take
one, I am not willing to let him go without a kind greeting, because
trifles of this sort, without having any effect on my mind, damp my
spirits:--and you, with all your struggles to be manly, have some of this
same sensibility.--Do not bid it begone, for I love to see it striving to
master your features; besides, these kind of sympathies are the life of
affection: and why, in cultivating our understandings, should we try to
dry up these springs of pleasure, which gush out to give a freshness to
days browned by care!

The books sent to me are such as we may read together; so I shall not
look into them till you return; when you shall read, whilst I mend my
stockings.

Yours truly

* * * *

* * * * *

LETTER X.

Wednesday Night [January 1.]

AS I have been, you tell me, three days without writing, I ought not to
complain of two: yet, as I expected to receive a letter this afternoon, I
am hurt; and why should I, by concealing it, affect the heroism I do not
feel?

I hate commerce. How differently must ------'s head and heart be
organized from mine! You will tell me, that exertions are necessary: I am
weary of them! The face of things, public and private, vexes me. The
"peace" and clemency which seemed to be dawning a few days ago, disappear
again. "I am fallen," as Milton said, "on evil days;" for I really
believe that Europe will be in a state of convulsion, during half a
century at least. Life is but a labour of patience: it is always rolling
a great stone up a hill; for, before a person can find a resting-place,
imagining it is lodged, down it comes again, and all the work is to be
done over anew!

Should I attempt to write any more, I could not change the strain. My
head aches, and my heart is heavy. The world appears an "unweeded
garden," where "things rank and vile" flourish best.

If you do not return soon--or, which is no such mighty matter, talk of
it--I will throw