erhaps as great a snare, as some
other accidentals have been to you; which being less immediately your own
gifts, you have still less reason than they to value yourself upon them.

'Let me only, on this subject, further observe, that condescension is not
meanness. There is a glory in yielding, that hardly any violent spirit
can judge of. My brother, perhaps, is no more sensible of this than you.
But as you have talents, which he has not, (who, however, has, as I hope,
that regard for morals, the want of which makes one of his objections to
you,) I could wish it may not be owing to you, that your mutual dislikes
to each other do not subside! for it is my earnest hope, that in time you
may see each other, without exciting the fears of a wife and a sister for
the consequence. Not that I should wish you to yield in points that
truly concerned your honour: no, Sir; I would be as delicate in such, as
you yourself: more delicate, I will venture to say, because more
uniformly so. How vain, how contemptible, is that pride, which shows
itself in standing upon diminutive observances; and gives up, and makes a
jest of, the most important duties!

'This article being considered as I wish, all the rest will be easy.
Were I to accept of the handsome separate provision you seem to intend
me; added to the considerate sums arisen from my grandfather's estate
since his death (more considerable than perhaps you may suppose from your
offer); I should think it my duty to lay up for the family good, and for
unforseen events, out of it: for, as to my donations, I would generally
confine myself in them to the tenth of my income, be it what it would. I
aim at no glare in what I do of that sort. All I wish for, is the power
of relieving the lame, the blind, the sick, and the industrious poor, and
those whom accident has made so, or sudden distress reduced. The common
or bred beggars I leave to others, and to the public provision. They
cannot be lower: perhaps they wish not to be higher: and, not able to do
for every one, I aim not at works of supererogation. Two hundred pounds
a year would do all I wish to do of the separate sort: for all above, I
would content myself to ask you; except, mistrusting your own economy,
you would give up to my management and keeping, in order to provide for
future contingencies, a larger portion; for which, as your steward, I
would regularly account.

'As to clothes, I have particularly two suits, which, h