is life of continual
inquietude--and, _entre nous_, I am determined to try to earn some money
here myself, in order to convince you that, if you chuse to run about the
world to get a fortune, it is for yourself--for the little girl and I
will live without your assistance, unless you are with us. I may be
termed proud--Be it so--but I will never abandon certain principles of
action.

The common run of men have such an ignoble way of thinking, that, if they
debauch their hearts, and prostitute their persons, following perhaps a
gust of inebriation, they suppose the wife, slave rather, whom they
maintain, has no right to complain, and ought to receive the sultan,
whenever he deigns to return, with open arms, though his have been
polluted by half an hundred promiscuous amours during his absence.

I consider fidelity and constancy as two distinct things; yet the former
is necessary, to give life to the other--and such a degree of respect do
I think due to myself, that, if only probity, which is a good thing in
its place, brings you back, never return!--for, if a wandering of the
heart, or even a caprice of the imagination detains you--there is an end
of all my hopes of happiness--I could not forgive it, if I would.

I have gotten into a melancholy mood, you perceive. You know my opinion
of men in general; you know that I think them systematic tyrants, and
that it is the rarest thing in the world, to meet with a man with
sufficient delicacy of feeling to govern desire. When I am thus sad, I
lament that my little darling, fondly as I doat on her, is a girl.--I am
sorry to have a tie to a world that for me is ever sown with thorns.

You will call this an ill-humoured letter, when, in fact, it is the
strongest proof of affection I can give, to dread to lose you. ------ has
taken such pains to convince me that you must and ought to stay, that it
has inconceivably depressed my spirits--You have always known my
opinion--I have ever declared, that two people, who mean to live
together, ought not to be long separated.--If certain things are more
necessary to you than me--search for them--Say but one word, and you
shall never hear of me more.--If not--for God's sake, let us struggle
with poverty--with any evil, but these continual inquietudes of business,
which I have been told were to last but a few months, though every day
the end appears more distant! This is the first letter in this strain
that I have determined to forward to y