_, is in a degree common to all postage. But if I sent you
word to Bath or the Devises, that I was expecting the aforesaid treat
this evening, though at the moment you received the intelligence my
full feast of fun would be over, yet there would be for a day or two
after, as you would well know, a smack, a relish left upon my mental
palate, which would give rational encouragement for you to foster a
portion at least of the disagreeable passion, which it was in part my
intention to produce. But ten months hence your envy or your sympathy
would be as useless as a passion spent upon the dead. Not only does
truth, in these long intervals, un-essence herself, but (what is
harder) one cannot venture a crude fiction for the fear that it may
ripen into a truth upon the voyage. What a wild improbable banter I
put upon you, some three years since ---- of Will Weatherall having
married a servant-maid! I remember gravely consulting you how we
were to receive her--for Will's wife was in no case to be rejected;
and your no less serious replication in the matter; how tenderly you
advised an abstemious introduction of literary topics before the lady,
with a caution not to be too forward in bringing on the carpet matters
more within the sphere of her intelligence; your deliberate judgment,
or rather wise suspension of sentence, how far jacks, and spits, and
mops, could with propriety be introduced as subjects; whether the
conscious avoiding of all such matters in discourse would not have a
worse look than the taking of them casually in our way; in what manner
we should carry ourselves to our maid Becky, Mrs. William Weatherall
being by; whether we should show more delicacy, and a truer sense of
respect for Will's wife, by treating Becky with our customary chiding
before her, or by an unusual deferential civility paid to Becky as
to a person of great worth, but thrown by the caprice of fate into a
humble station. There were difficulties, I remember, on both sides,
which you did me the favour to state with the precision of a lawyer,
united to the tenderness of a friend. I laughed in my sleeve at your
solemn pleadings, when lo! while I was valuing myself upon this
flam put upon you in New South Wales, the devil in England, jealous
possibly of any lie-children not his own, or working after my copy,
has actually instigated our friend (not three days since) to the
commission of a matrimony, which I had only conjured up for your
diversion. Will