Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 12.djvu/70

58 capable of the other. How comes it then to pass, that you, who have sense, though you have wit, and virtue, though you have kept bad company in your time, should be so surprised that I continue to write to you, and expect to hear from you, after seven years absence?

Anni prædantur euntes, say you; and time will lop off my luxuriant branches: perhaps it will be so. But I have put the pruninghook into a hand, which works hard to leave the other as little to do of that kind as may be. Some superfluous twigs are every day cut; and as they lessen in number, the bough, which bears the golden fruit of friendship, shoots, swells, and spreads.

Our friend told you what he heard, and what was commonly said, when he told you that I had taken the fancy of growing rich. If I could have resolved to think two minutes a day about stocks, to flatter Law half an hour a week, or to have any obligation to people I neither loved nor valued, certain it is that I might have gained immensely. But not caring to follow the many bright examples of these kinds, which France furnished, and which England sent us over, I turned the little money I had of my own, without being let into any secret, very negligently: and if I have secured enough to content me, it is because I was soon contented. I am sorry to hear you confess, that the love of money has got into your head. Take care, or it will, ere long,