s for me), tho your love should continue in its full force
there are hours when the most beloved mistress would be troublesome.
People are not forever (nor is it in human nature that they should be)
disposed to be fond; you would be glad to find in me the friend and
the companion. To be agreeably the last, it is necessary to be gay and
entertaining. A perpetual solitude, in a place where you see nothing
to raise your spirits, at length wears them out, and conversation
insensibly becomes dull and insipid. When I have no more to say to
you, you will like me no longer.

How dreadful is that view! You will reflect for my sake you have
abandoned the conversation of a friend that you liked, and your
situation in a country where all things would have contributed to make
your life pass in (the true _volupte_) a smooth tranquillity. I shall
lose the vivacity which should entertain you, and you will have
nothing to recompense you for what you have lost. Very few people that
have settled entirely in the country, but have grown at length weary
of one another. The lady's conversation generally falls into a
thousand impertinent effects of idleness; and the gentleman falls in
love with his dogs and his horses, and out of love with everything
else. I am not now arguing in favor of the town: you have answered me
as to that point.

In respect of your health, 'tis the first thing to be considered, and
I shall never ask you to do anything injurious to that. But 'tis my
opinion, 'tis necessary, to be happy, that we neither of us think any
place more agreeable than that where we are. I have nothing to do in
London; and 'tis indifferent to me if I never see it more. I know not
how to answer your mentioning gallantry, nor in what sense to
understand you: whomever I marry, when I am married I renounce all
things of the kind. I am willing to abandon all conversation but
yours; I will part with anything for you, but you. I will not have you
a month, to lose you for the rest of my life. If you can pursue the
plan of happiness begun with your friend, and take me for that friend,
I am ever yours. I have examined my own heart whether I can leave
everything for you; I think I can: if I change my mind, you shall know
before Sunday; after that I will not change my mind.

If 'tis necessary for your affairs to stay in England, to assist your
father in his business, as I suppose the time will be short, I would
be as little injurious to your fortune as I