Page:A Biographical Dictionary of the Celebrated Women of Every Age and Country (1804).djvu/737

Rh with, might have procured me an easy competence, if the tolerated piracy encouraged by the booksellers, had not deranged my projects; I have enriched some knaves, but have received little advantage myself from my literary labours. These disagreeable circumstances, added to my natural indolence, make me prefer employing myself in works of embroidery or tapestry, rather than hold a pen for the emolument of those people. I am grieved, not to have an interesting history to tell you; but the life of a rational woman rarely offers facts worthy of attention; mine has not been happy. My youth was spent in sorrow, but that may be the better for me. I sometime hear persons, in the decline of life, make comparisons of the past and present time, recall to their minds former scenes, and complain of the present; for my part, I feel no regret on that account, my present condition appears to me the best which heaven in its goodness has been pleased to allot me. Independent and free, I have lived twenty-five years with a friend (a female friend, of excellent character) whose sense, equality of temper, and amiable character, diffuse a continual comfort and delight to our society; and I enjoy the utmost tranquility. We are strangers to the least disagreement, weariness, or uneasiness of any kind. The word no is banished between us; and as we are guided by the same principles, they naturally lead us to the same manner of thinking. So that perpetual harmony reigns in our little household. This is all I am able to inform you of as to myself; and I doubt if, after my death, any more will be known of me." The above letter to Mrs. Thicknesse was in French, but we thought it unnecessary to preserve the text. The