Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 13.djvu/77

Rh Would to God you were with us to complete our happiness. I had a letter from Mrs. Cleland to inquire about you; she says, she hears you are coming to England: surely if you were, you would tell me so; for few things in life could give me more true delight than the sight of you.

You are extremely good to enter into my affairs: all marks you give me of your friendship, increase my esteem for you, and make me bear the common rubs of life with patience. I have really been often tempted to let you into all my secrets; but the thought that you only could receive uneasiness from them, and that even your advice could not remove the least painful of them, hindered me from it; for to those I best love I still remain upon these heads reserved. Indeed the cause of my complaints is of such a nature, that it cannot well be told. The unhappy life of a near relation must give one a pain in the very repeating it, that cannot be described. For surely to be the daughter of a colonel Chartres, must, to a rational being, give the greatest anxiety; for who would have a father at seventy publickly tried for an attempt of a rape? Such a Dulcinea del Toboso is shocking, I think. For if a man must do wrong, he should aim a little higher than the enjoyment of a kitchen maid, that he finds obstinately virtuous. In short, dear sir, I have been fool enough to let such things make an impression on me, which, spite of a good constitution, much spirits, and using a great deal of exercise, have brought me to what I am. Were I without a mother (I mean, had I lost her in my infancy, and not known her goodness) I could still better have born the steps that were taken; but while I saw how lavish he was XIII.