Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 12.djvu/53

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S it possible, that again you will do the very same thing I warned you of so lately? I believe you thought I only rallied, when I told you the other night, I would pester you with letters. Once more I advise you, if you have any regard for your quiet, to alter your behaviour quickly, for I do assure you, I have too much spirit to sit down contented with this treatment. Because I love frankness extremely, I here tell you not that I have determined to try all manner of human arts to reclaim you; and if all those fail, I am resolved to have recourse to the black one, which, it is said, never does. Now see what inconveniency you will bring both yourself and me into. Pray think calmly of it; is it not much better to come of yourself, than to be brought by force, and that perhaps at a time when you have the most agreeable engagement in the world? for when I undertake any thing, I do not love to do it by halves.

F you write as you do, I shall come the seldomer, on purpose to be pleased with your letters, which I never look into without wondering how a brat that cannot read, can possibly write so well. You are mistaken: send me a letter without your hand on the outside, and I hold you a crown I shall not read it. But raillery apart, I think it inconvenient, for a hundred reasons, that I should make your house a sort