Page:The Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets, Volume 4.djvu/250

246 of so many defeats in myself, as dispose me to be not a little charitable and forgiving.

"It gives me the truest heart-felt satisfaction to hear you have a good kind husband, and are in easy contented circumstances; but were they otherwise, that would only awaken and heighten my tenderness towards you, as our good and tender-hearted parents did not live to receive any material testimonies of that highest human gratitude I owed them, (than which nothing could have given me equal plea sure,) the only return I can make them now is by kindness to those they left behind them. Would to God, poor Lizy had lived longer, to have been a farther witness of the truth of what I say, and that I might have had the pleasure of seeing once more a sister who so truly deserved my esteem and love! But she is happy, while we must toil a little longer here below: let us however do it cheerfully, and gratefully, supported by the pleasing hope of meeting yet again on a safer shore, where to recollect the storms and difficulties of life will not perhaps be inconsistent with that blissful state. You did right to call your daughter Rh