rbearing side? In my mother's case, your observation
I must own is verified, that those who will bear much, shall have much
to bear.** What is it, as she says, that she has not sacrificed to
peace?--Yet, has she by her sacrifices always found the peace she has
deserved to find? Indeed, no!--I am afraid the very contrary. And often
and often have I had reason (on her account) to reflect, that we poor
mortals, by our over-solicitude to preserve undisturbed the qualities we
are constitutionally fond of, frequently lose the benefits we propose
to ourselves from them: since the designing and encroaching (finding out
what we most fear to forfeit) direct their batteries against these our
weaker places, and, making an artillery (if I may so phrase it) of our
hopes and fears, play upon us at their pleasure.

* See Letter IX.

** See Letter X.

Steadiness of mind, (a quality which the ill-bred and censorious deny to
any of our sex) when we are absolutely convinced of being in the right
[otherwise it is not steadiness, but obstinacy] and when it is exerted
in material cases, is a quality, which, as my good Dr. Lewen was wont to
say, brings great credit to the possessor of it; at the same time that
it usually, when tried and known, raises such above the attempts of
the meanly machinating. He used therefore to inculcate upon me this
steadiness, upon laudable convictions. And why may I not think that I am
now put upon a proper exercise of it?

I said above, that I never can be, that I never ought to be, Mrs.
Solmes.--I repeat, that I ought not: for surely, my dear, I should not
give up to my brother's ambition the happiness of my future life. Surely
I ought not to be the instrument of depriving Mr. Solmes's relations of
their natural rights and reversionary prospects, for the sake of further
aggrandizing a family (although that I am of) which already lives
in great affluence and splendour; and which might be as justly
dissatisfied, were all that some of it aim at to be obtained, that they
were not princes, as now they are that they are not peers [For when ever
was an ambitious mind, as you observe in the case of avarice,* satisfied
by acquisition?]. The less, surely, ought I to give into these grasping
views of my brother, as I myself heartily despise the end aimed at; as
I wish not either to change my state, or better my fortunes; and as I
am fully persuaded, that happiness and riches are two things, and very