Yet you are not convinced, you say, that to be miserable is the way to be good; to some natures I think it is not, but there are many of so careless and vain a temper, that the least breath of good fortune swells them with so much pride, that if they were not put in mind sometimes by a sound cross or two that they are mortal, they would hardly think it possible; and though "tis a sign of a servile nature when fear produces more of reverence in us than love, yet there is more danger of forgetting oneself in a prosperous fortune than in the contrary, and affliction may be the surest (though not the pleasantest) guide to heaven. What think you, might not I preach with Mr. Marshall for a wager? But you could fancy a perfect happiness here, you say; that is not much, many people do so; but I never heard of anybody that ever had it more than in fancy, so that will not be strange if you should miss on"t. One may be happy to a good degree, I think, in a faithful friend, a moderate fortune, and a retired life; further than this I know nothing to wish; but if there be anything beyond it, I wish it you.
You did not tell me what carried you out of town in such haste. I hope the occasion was good, you must account to me for all that I lost by it.
I shall expect a whole packet next week. Oh, me! I have forgot this once or twice to tell you, that if it be no inconvenience to you, I could wish you would change the place of direction for my letters. Certainly that Jones knows my name, I bespoke a saddle of him once, and though it be a good while agone, yet I was so often with him about it,--having much ado to make him understand how I would have it, it being of a fashion he had never seen, though, sure, it be common,--that I am confident he has not forgot me. Besides that, upon it he got my brother"s custom; and I cannot tell whether he does not use the shop still. Jane presents her humble service to you, and has sent you something in a box; "tis hard to imagine what she can find here to present you withal, and I am much in doubt whether you will not pay too dear for it if you discharge the carriage. "Tis a pretty freedom she takes, but you may thank yourself; she thinks because you call her fellow-servant, she may use you accordingly. I bred her better, but you have spoiled her.
Is it true that my Lord Whitlocke goes Amba.s.sador where my Lord Lisle should have gone? I know not how he may appear in a Swedish Court, but he was never meant for a courtier at home, I believe. Yet "tis a gracious Prince; he is often in this country, and always does us the favour to send for his fruit hither. He was making a purchase of one of the best houses in the county. I know not whether he goes on with it; but "tis such a one as will not become anything less than a lord. And there is a talk as if the Chancery were going down; if so, his t.i.tle goes with it, I think. "Twill be sad news for my Lord Keble"s son; he will have nothing left to say when "my Lord, my father," is taken from him. Were it not better that I had nothing to say neither, than that I should entertain you with such senseless things. I hope I am half asleep, nothing else can excuse me; if I were quite asleep, I should say fine things to you; I often dream I do; but perhaps if I could remember them they are no wiser than my wakening discourses. Good-night.
_Letter 40._--A letter has been lost; whether Harrold or Collins, the two carriers, were either or both of them guilty of carelessness in the delivery of these letters, it is quite impossible to say now. Dorothy seems to think Harrold delivered the letter, and it was mislaid in London. Perhaps it was this letter, and what was written about it, that caused all those latent feelings of despair and discontent to awaken in the b.r.e.a.s.t.s of the two lovers. Was this the spark that loneliness and absence fanned into flame? You shall judge for yourself, reader, in the next chapter.
SIR,--That you may be at more certainty hereafter what to think, let me tell you that nothing could hinder me from writing to you (as well for my own satisfaction as yours) but an impossibility of doing it; nothing but death or a dead palsy in my hands, or something that had the same effect. I did write it, and gave it Harrold, but by an accident his horse fell lame, so that he could not set out on Monday; but on Tuesday he did come to town; on Wednesday, carried the letter himself (as he tells me) where "twas directed, which was to Mr. Copyn in Fleet Street.
"Twas the first time I made use of that direction; no matter and I had not done it then, since it proves no better. Harrold came late home on Thursday night with such an account as your boy gave you: that coming out of town the same day he came in, he had been at Fleet Street again, but there was no letter for him. I was sorry, but I did not much wonder at it because he gave so little time, and resolved to make my best of that I had by Collins. I read it over often enough to make it equal with the longest letter that ever was writ, and pleased myself, in earnest (as much as it was possible for me in the humour I was in), to think how by that time you had asked me pardon for the little reproaches you had made me, and that the kindness and length of my letter had made you amends for the trouble it had given you in expecting it. But I am not a little annoyed to find you had it not. I am very confident it was delivered, and therefore you must search where the fault lies.
Were it not that you had suffered too much already, I would complain a little of you. Why should you think me so careless of anything that you were concerned in, as to doubt that I had writ? Though I had received none from you, I should not have taken that occasion to revenge myself.
Nay, I should have concluded you innocent, and have imagined a thousand ways how it might happen, rather than have suspected your want of kindness. Why should not you be as just to me? But I will not chide, it may be (as long as we have been friends) you do not know me so well yet as to make an absolute judgment of me; but if I know myself at all, if I am capable of being anything, "tis a perfect friend. Yet I must chide too. Why did you get such a cold? Good G.o.d! how careless you are of a life that (by your own confession) I have told you makes all the happiness of mine. "Tis unkindly done. What is left for me to say, when that will not prevail with you; or how can you persuade me to a cure of myself, when you refuse to give me the example? I have nothing in the world that gives me the least desire of preserving myself, but the opinion I have you would not be willing to lose me; and yet, if you saw with what caution I live (at least to what I did before), you would reproach it to yourself sometimes, and might grant, perhaps, that you have not got the advantage of me in friendship so much as you imagine.
What (besides your consideration) could oblige me to live and lose all the rest of my friends thus one after another? Sure I am not insensible nor very ill-natured, and yet I"ll swear I think I do not afflict myself half so much as another would do that had my losses. I pay nothing of sadness to the memory of my poor brother, but I presently disperse it with thinking what I owe in thankfulness that "tis not you I mourn for.
Well, give me no more occasions to complain of you, you know not what may follow. Here was Mr. Freeman yesterday that made me a very kind visit, and said so many fine things to me, that I was confounded with his civilities, and had nothing to say for myself. I could have wished then that he had considered me less and my niece more; but if you continue to use me thus, in earnest, I"ll not be so much her friend hereafter. Methinks I see you laugh at all my threatenings; and not without reason. Mr. Freeman, you believe, is designed for somebody that deserves him better. I think so too, and am not sorry for it; and you have reason to believe I never can be other than
Your faithful friend.
CHAPTER IV
DESPONDENCY. CHRISTMAS 1653
This chapter of letters is a sad note, sounding out from among its fellows with mournful clearness. There had seemed a doubt whether all these letters must be regarded as of one series, or whether, more correctly, it was to be a.s.sumed that Dorothy and Temple had their lovers" quarrels, for the well-understood pleasure of kissing friends again. But you will agree that these lovers were not altogether as other lovers are, that their troubles were too real and too many for their love to need the stimulus of constant April shower quarrels; and these letters are very serious in their sadness, imprinting themselves in the mind after constant reading as landmarks clearly defining the course and progress of an unusual event in these lovers" history--a misunderstanding.
The letters are written at Christmastide, 1653. Dorothy had returned from London to Chicksands, and either had not seen Temple or he had left London hurriedly whilst she was there. There is a letter lost. Dorothy"s youngest brother is lately dead; her niece has left her; her companion Jane is sick; her father, growing daily weaker and weaker, was sinking into his grave before her eyes. No bright chance seemed to open before her, and their marriage seemed an impossibility. For a moment she loses faith, not in Temple, but in fortune; faith once gone, hope, missing her comrade, flies away in search of her. She is alone in the old house with her dying father, and with her brother pouring his unkind gossip into her unwilling ear, whilst the sad long year draws slowly to its close, and there is no sign of better fortune for the lovers; can we wonder, then, that Dorothy, lonely and unaided, pacing in the damp garden beneath the bare trees, with all the bright summer changed into decay, lost faith and hope?
Temple, when Dorothy"s thoughts reach him, must have replied with some impatience. There are stories, too, set about concerning her good name by one Mr. B., to disturb Temple. Temple can hardly have given credence to these, but he may have complained of them to Dorothy, who is led to declare, "I am the most unfortunate woman breathing, but I was never false," though she forgives her lover "all those strange thoughts he has had" of her. Whatever were the causes of the quarrel, or rather the despondency, we shall never know accurately. Dorothy was not the woman to vapour for months about "an early and a quiet grave." When she writes this it is written in the deepest earnest of despair; when this mood is over it is over for ever, and we emerge into a clear atmosphere of hope and content. The despondency has been agonizing, but the agony is sharp and rapid, and gives place to the wisdom of hope.
Temple now comes to Chicksands at an early date. There is a new interchange of vows. Never again will their faith be shaken by fretting and despair; and these vows are never broken, but remain with the lovers until they are set aside by others, taken under the solemn sanction of the law, and the old troubles vanish in new responsibilities and a new life.
_Letter 41._--Lady Anne Blunt was a daughter of the Earl of Newport. Her mother had turned Catholic in 1637, which had led to an estrangement between her and her husband, and we may conclude poor Lady Anne had by no means a happy home. There are two scandals connected with her name.
She appears to have run away with one William Blunt,--the "Mr. Blunt"
mentioned by Dorothy in her next letter; and on April 18, 1654, she pet.i.tioned the Protector to issue a special commission upon her whole case. Mr. Blunt pretended that she was contracted to him for the sake, it is said, of gaining money thereby. There being no Bishop"s Court at this time, there are legal difficulties in the way, and we never hear the result of the pet.i.tion. Again, in February 1655, one Mr. Porter finds himself committed to Lambeth House for carrying away the Lady Anne Blunt, and endeavouring to marry her without her father"s consent.
SIR,--Having tired myself with thinking, I mean to weary you with reading, and revenge myself that way for all the unquiet thoughts you have given me. But I intended this a sober letter, and therefore, _sans raillerie_, let me tell you, I have seriously considered all our misfortunes, and can see no end of them but by submitting to that which we cannot avoid, and by yielding to it break the force of a blow which if resisted brings a certain ruin. I think I need not tell you how dear you have been to me, nor that in your kindness I placed all the satisfaction of my life; "twas the only happiness I proposed to myself, and had set my heart so much upon it that it was therefore made my punishment, to let me see that, how innocent soever I thought my affection, it was guilty in being greater than is allowable for things of this world. "Tis not a melancholy humour gives me these apprehensions and inclinations, nor the persuasions of others; "tis the result of a long strife with myself, before my reason could overcome my pa.s.sion, or bring me to a perfect resignation to whatsoever is allotted for me. "Tis now done, I hope, and I have nothing left but to persuade you to that, which I a.s.sure myself your own judgment will approve in the end, and your reason has often prevailed with you to offer; that which you would have done then out of kindness to me and point of honour, I would have you do now out of wisdom and kindness to yourself. Not that I would disclaim my part in it or lessen my obligation to you, no, I am your friend as much as ever I was in my life, I think more, and I am sure I shall never be less. I have known you long enough to discern that you have all the qualities that make an excellent friend, and I shall endeavour to deserve that you may be so to me; but I would have you do this upon the justest grounds, and such as may conduce most to your quiet and future satisfaction. When we have tried all ways to happiness, there is no such thing to be found but in a mind conformed to one"s condition, whatever it be, and in not aiming at anything that is either impossible or improbable; all the rest is but vanity and vexation of spirit, and I durst p.r.o.nounce it so from that little knowledge I have had of the world, though I had not Scripture for my warrant. The shepherd that bragged to the traveller, who asked him, "What weather it was like to be?" that it should be what weather pleased him, and made it good by saying it should be what weather pleased G.o.d, and what pleased G.o.d should please him, said an excellent thing in such language, and knew enough to make him the happiest person in the world if he made a right use on"t. There can be no pleasure in a struggling life, and that folly which we condemn in an ambitious man, that"s ever labouring for that which is hardly got and more uncertainly kept, is seen in all according to their several humours; in some "tis covetousness, in others pride, in some stubbornness of nature that chooses always to go against the tide, and in others an unfortunate fancy to things that are in themselves innocent till we make them otherwise by desiring them too much. Of this sort you and I are, I think; we have lived hitherto upon hopes so airy that I have often wondered how they could support the weight of our misfortunes; but pa.s.sion gives a strength above nature, we see it in mad people; and, not to flatter ourselves, ours is but a refined degree of madness. What can it be else to be lost to all things in the world but that single object that takes up one"s fancy, to lose all the quiet and repose of one"s life in hunting after it, when there is so little likelihood of ever gaining it, and so many more probable accidents that will infallibly make us miss on"t? And which is more than all, "tis being mastered by that which reason and religion teaches us to govern, and in that only gives us a pre-eminence over beasts. This, soberly consider"d, is enough to let us see our error, and consequently to persuade us to redeem it. To another person, I should justify myself that "tis not a lightness in my nature, nor any interest that is not common to us both, that has wrought this change in me. To you that know my heart, and from whom I shall never hide it, to whom a thousand testimonies of my kindness can witness the reality of it, and whose friendship is not built upon common grounds, I have no more to say but that I impose not my opinions upon you, and that I had rather you took them up as your own choice than upon my entreaty. But if, as we have not differed in anything else, we could agree in this too, and resolve upon a friendship that will be much the perfecter for having nothing of pa.s.sion in it, how happy might we be without so much as a fear of the change that any accident could bring. We might defy all that fortune could do, and putting off all disguise and constraint, with that which only made it necessary, make our lives as easy to us as the condition of this world will permit. I may own you as a person that I extremely value and esteem, and for whom I have a particular friendship, and you may consider me as one that will always be
Your faithful.
This was written when I expected a letter from you, how came I to miss it? I thought at first it might be the carrier"s fault in changing his time without giving notice, but he a.s.sures me he did, to Nan. My brother"s groom came down to-day, too, and saw her, he tells me, but brings me nothing from her; if nothing of ill be the cause, I am contented. You hear the noise my Lady Anne Blunt has made with her marrying? I am so weary with meeting it in all places where I go; from what is she fallen! they talked but the week before that she should have my Lord of Strafford. Did you not intend to write to me when you writ to Jane? That bit of paper did me great service; without it I should have had strange apprehension, and my sad dreams, and the several frights I have waked in, would have run so in my head that I should have concluded something of very ill from your silence. Poor Jane is sick, but she will write, she says, if she can. Did you send the last part of _Cyrus_ to Mr. Hollingsworth?
_Letter 42._
SIR,--I am extremely sorry that your letter miscarried, but I am confident my brother has it not. As cunning as he is, he could not hide from me, but that I should discover it some way or other. No; he was here, and both his men, when this letter should have come, and not one of them stirred out that day; indeed, the next day they went all to London. The note you writ to Jane came in one of Nan"s, by Collins, but nothing else; it must be lost by the porter that was sent with it, and "twas very unhappy that there should be anything in it of more consequence than ordinary; it may be numbered amongst the rest of our misfortunes, all which an inconsiderate pa.s.sion has occasioned. You must pardon me I cannot be reconciled to it, it has been the ruin of us both.
"Tis true that n.o.body must imagine to themselves ever to be absolute master on"t, but there is great difference betwixt that and yielding to it, between striving with it and soothing it up till it grows too strong for one. Can I remember how ignorantly and innocently I suffered it to steal upon me by degrees; how under a mask of friendship I cozened myself into that which, had it appeared to me at first in its true shape, I had feared and shunned? Can I discern that it has made the trouble of your life, and cast a cloud upon mine, that will help to cover me in my grave? Can I know that it wrought so upon us both as to make neither of us friends to one another, but agree in running wildly to our own destruction, and that perhaps of some innocent persons who might live to curse our folly that gave them so miserable a being? Ah!
if you love yourself or me, you must confess that I have reason to condemn this senseless pa.s.sion; that wheresoe"er it comes destroys all that entertain it; nothing of judgment or discretion can live with it, and it puts everything else out of order before it can find a place for itself. What has it brought my poor Lady Anne Blunt to? She is the talk of all the footmen and boys in the street, and will be company for them shortly, and yet is so blinded by her pa.s.sion as not at all to perceive the misery she has brought herself to; and this fond love of hers has so rooted all sense of nature out of her heart, that, they say, she is no more moved than a statue with the affliction of a father and mother that doted on her, and had placed the comfort of their lives in her preferment. With all this is it not manifest to the whole world that Mr.
Blunt could not consider anything in this action but his own interest, and that he makes her a very ill return for all her kindness; if he had loved her truly he would have died rather than have been the occasion of this misfortune to her. My cousin Franklin (as you observe very well) may say fine things now she is warm in Moor Park, but she is very much altered in her opinions since her marriage, if these be her own. She left a gentleman, that I could name, whom she had much more of kindness for than ever she had for Mr. Franklin, because his estate was less; and upon the discovery of some letters that her mother intercepted, suffered herself to be persuaded that twenty-three hundred pound a year was better than twelve hundred, though with a person she loved; and has recovered it so well, that you see she confesses there is nothing in her condition she desires to alter at the charge of a wish. She"s happier by much than I shall ever be, but I do not envy her; may she long enjoy it, and I an early and a quiet grave, free from the trouble of this busy world, where all with pa.s.sion pursue their own interests at their neighbour"s charges; where n.o.body is pleased but somebody complains on"t; and where "tis impossible to be without giving and receiving injuries.
You would know what I would be at, and how I intend to dispose of myself. Alas! were I in my own disposal, you should come to my grave to be resolved; but grief alone will not kill. All that I can say, then, is that I resolve on nothing but to arm myself with patience, to resist nothing that is laid upon me, nor struggle for what I have no hope to get. I have no ends nor no designs, nor will my heart ever be capable of any; but like a country wasted by a civil war, where two opposing parties have disputed their right so long till they have made it worth neither of their conquests, "tis ruined and desolated by the long strife within it to that degree as "twill be useful to none,--n.o.body that knows the condition "tis in will think it worth the gaining, and I shall not trouble anybody with it. No, really, if I may be permitted to desire anything, it shall be only that I may injure n.o.body but myself,--I can bear anything that reflects only upon me; or, if I cannot, I can die; but I would fain die innocent, that I might hope to be happy in the next world, though never in this. I take it a little ill that you should conjure me by anything, with a belief that "tis more powerful with me than your kindness. No, a.s.sure yourself what that alone cannot gain will be denied to all the world. You would see me, you say? You may do so if you please, though I know not to what end. You deceive yourself if you think it would prevail upon me to alter my intentions; besides, I can make no contrivances; it must be here, and I must endure the noise it will make, and undergo the censures of a people that choose ever to give the worst interpretation that anything will bear. Yet if it can be any ease to you to make me more miserable than I am, never spare me; consider yourself only, and not me at all,--"tis no more than I deserve for not accepting what you offered me whilst "twas in your power to make it good, as you say it then was. You were prepared, it seems, but I was surprised, I confess. "Twas a kind fault though; and you may pardon it with more reason than I have to forgive it myself. And let me tell you this, too, as lost and as wretched as I am, I have still some sense of my reputation left in me,--I find that to my cost,--I shall attempt to preserve it as clear as I can; and to do that, I must, if you see me thus, make it the last of our interviews. What can excuse me if I should entertain any person that is known to pretend to me, when I can have no hope of ever marrying him? And what hope can I have of that when the fortune that can only make it possible to me depends upon a thousand accidents and contingencies, the uncertainty of the place "tis in, and the government it may fall under, your father"s life or his success, his disposal of himself and of his fortune, besides the time that must necessarily be required to produce all this, and the changes that may probably bring with it, which "tis impossible for us to foresee? All this considered, what have I to say for myself when people shall ask, what "tis I expect? Can there be anything vainer than such a hope upon such grounds? You must needs see the folly on"t yourself, and therefore examine your own heart what "tis fit for me to do, and what you can do for a person you love, and that deserves your compa.s.sion if nothing else,--a person that will always have an inviolable friendship for you, a friendship that shall take up all the room my pa.s.sion held in my heart, and govern there as master, till death come and take possession and turn it out.
Why should you make an impossibility where there is none? A thousand accidents might have taken me from you, and you must have borne it. Why would not your own resolution work as much upon you as necessity and time does infallibly upon people? Your father would take it very ill, I believe, if you should pretend to love me better than he did my Lady, yet she is dead and he lives, and perhaps may do to love again. There is a gentlewoman in this country that loved so pa.s.sionately for six or seven years that her friends, who kept her from marrying, fearing her death, consented to it; and within half a year her husband died, which afflicted her so strongly n.o.body thought she would have lived. She saw no light but candles in three years, nor came abroad in five; and now that "tis some nine years past, she is pa.s.sionately taken again with another, and how long she has been so n.o.body knows but herself. This is to let you see "tis not impossible what I ask, nor unreasonable. Think on"t, and attempt it at least; but do it sincerely, and do not help your pa.s.sion to master you. As you have ever loved me do this.
The carrier shall bring your letters to Suffolk House to Jones. I shall long to hear from you; but if you should deny the only hope that"s left me, I must beg you will defer it till Christmas Day be past; for, to deal freely with you, I have some devotions to perform then, which must not be disturbed with anything, and nothing is like to do it as so sensible an affliction. Adieu.
_Letter 43._
SIR,--I can say little more than I did,--I am convinced of the vileness of the world and all that"s in it, and that I deceived myself extremely when I expected anything of comfort from it. No, I have no more to do in"t but to grow every day more and more weary of it, if it be possible that I have not yet reached the highest degree of hatred for it. But I thank G.o.d I hate nothing else but the base world, and the vices that make a part of it. I am in perfect charity with my enemies, and have compa.s.sion for all people"s misfortunes as well as for my own, especially for those I may have caused; and I may truly say I bear my share of such. But as nothing obliges me to relieve a person that is in extreme want till I change conditions with him and come to be where he began, and that I may be thought compa.s.sionate if I do all that I can without prejudicing myself too much, so let me tell you, that if I could help it, I would not love you, and that as long as I live I shall strive against it as against that which had been my ruin, and was certainly sent me as a punishment for my sin. But I shall always have a sense of your misfortunes, equal, if not above, my own. I shall pray that you may obtain a quiet I never hope for but in my grave, and I shall never change my condition but with my life. Yet let not this give you a hope.
Nothing ever can persuade me to enter the world again. I shall, in a short time, have disengaged myself of all my little affairs in it, and settled myself in a condition to apprehend nothing but too long a life, therefore I wish you would forget me; and to induce you to it, let me tell you freely that I deserve you should. If I remember anybody, "tis against my will. I am possessed with that strange insensibility that my nearest relations have no tie upon me, and I find myself no more concerned in those that I have heretofore had great tenderness of affection for, than in my kindred that died long before I was born.
Leave me to this, and seek a better fortune. I beg it of you as heartily as I forgive you all those strange thoughts you have had of me. Think me so still if that will do anything towards it. For G.o.d"s sake do take any course that may make you happy; or, if that cannot be, less unfortunate at least than
Your friend and humble servant,
D. OSBORNE.
I can hear nothing of that letter, but I hear from all people that I know, part of my unhappy story, and from some that I do not know. A lady, whose face I never saw, sent it me as news she had out of Ireland.
_Letter 44._
SIR,--If you have ever loved me, do not refuse the last request I shall ever make you; "tis to preserve yourself from the violence of your pa.s.sion. Vent it all upon me; call me and think me what you please; make me, if it be possible, more wretched than I am. I"ll bear it all without the least murmur. Nay, I deserve it all, for had you never seen me you had certainly been happy. "Tis my misfortunes only that have that infectious quality as to strike at the same time me and all that"s dear to me. I am the most unfortunate woman breathing, but I was never false.
No; I call heaven to witness that if my life could satisfy for the least injury my fortune has done you (I cannot say "twas I that did them you), I would lay it down with greater joy than any person ever received a crown; and if I ever forget what I owe you, or ever entertained a thought of kindness for any person in the world besides, may I live a long and miserable life. "Tis the greatest curse I can invent; if there be a greater, may I feel it. This is all I can say. Tell me if it be possible I can do anything for you, and tell me how I may deserve your pardon for all the trouble I have given you. I would not die without it.
[Directed.] For Mr. Temple.
_Letter 45._
SIR,--"Tis most true what you say, that few have what they merit; if it were otherwise, you would be happy, I think, but then I should be so too, and that must not be,--a false and an inconstant person cannot merit it, I am sure. You are kind in your good wishes, but I aim at no friends nor no princes, the honour would be lost upon me; I should become a crown so ill, there would be no striving for it after me, and, sure, I should not wear it long. Your letter was a much greater loss to me than that of Henry Cromwell, and, therefore, "tis that with all my care and diligence I cannot inquire it out. You will not complain, I believe, of the shortness of my last, whatever else you dislike in it, and if I spare you at any time "tis because I cannot but imagine, since I am so wearisome to myself, that I must needs be so to everybody else, though, at present, I have other occasions that will not permit this to be a long one. I am sorry it should be only in my power to make a friend miserable, and that where I have so great a kindness I should do so great injuries; but "tis my fortune, and I must bear it; "twill be none to you, I hope, to pray for you, nor to desire that you would (all pa.s.sion laid aside) freely tell me my faults, that I may, at least, ask your forgiveness where "tis not in my power to make you better satisfaction. I would fain make even with all the world, and be out of danger of dying in anybody"s debt; then I have nothing more to do in it but to expect when I shall be so happy as to leave it, and always to remember that my misfortune makes all my faults towards you, and that my faults to G.o.d make all my misfortunes.
Your unhappy.
_Letter 46._