Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 12.djvu/56

44 are there of a deity, but what you are to be known by? You are present every where: your dear image is always before my eyes. Sometimes you strike me with that prodigious awe I tremble with fear: at other times a charming compassion shines through your countenance, which revives my soul. Is it not more reasonable to adore a radiant form one has seen, than one only described?

OCTOBER 15, 1720.

SIT down with the first opportunity I have to write to you, and the Lord knows when I can find conveniency to send this letter; for all the morning I am plagued with impertinent visits, below any man of sense or honour to endure, if it were any way avoidable. Dinners and afternoons and evenings are spent abroad in walking, to keep and avoid spleen as far as I can; so that when I am not so good a correspondent as I could wish, you are not to quarrel and be governor; but to impute it to my situation, and to conclude infallibly, that I have the same respect and kindness for you I ever professed to have, and shall ever preserve; because you will always merit the utmost that can be given you, especially if you go on to read and still farther improve your mind, and the talents that nature has given you. I am in much concern for poor Mobkin; and the more, because Rh