Page:Memoirs of a Huguenot Family.djvu/346

 then three months old. Please God to preserve him; he will have limbs and strength to scuffle through the woods, and cope with his fellow foresters, whether human or brute.

Dear brother, feed much on soup and vegetables, and good fruits; and in the winter good salad oil with endive, dandelion, and other bitter salads at your meals, will help digestion, cut the tough phlegm which engenders the pleurisy, make good blood, and keep the body in good order. I know you eat little meat. Taking the air on horseback in fine weather, and your employment in your garden, will keep you healthy and cheerful, with God's blessing. Be pleased with little things, such as the flourishing of a tree or a plant, or a bed of flowers, and fret not at disappointments. Why may not the growth of your trees afford you as much pleasure as the flourishing of a colony does to His Majesty, who hath as many, God bless him! as you have trees. Excuse this piece of quackery. I give you the same advice I follow myself, and am with great sincerity, dear brother,

Your affectionate, humble servant,

While our Merciful Father pours in his blessings upon us through one channel, he afflicts through another. I heartily condole with you, my sister, and the rest of our relations on
 * —Just received your kind letters of 30th November, 1753, dated from your castle, with a hard name, and give you joy of your purchase, which, if you have a fee simple in it, will be, with God's blessing, a pretty revenue for you and one of yours, for many generations.