Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 14.djvu/75

Rh one of my schemes. This wildness you must allow for, because I am giddy and deaf.

I find it more convenient to be sick here, without the vexation of making my friends uneasy; yet my giddiness alone would not have done, if that unsociable comfortless deafness had not quite tired me. And I believe I should have returned from the inn, if I had not feared it was only a short intermission, and the year was late, and my license expiring. Surely beside all other faults, I should be a very ill judge, to doubt your friendship and kindness. But it has pleased God that you are not in a state of health, to be mortified with the care and sickness of a friend. Two sick friends never did well together; such an office is fitter for servants and humble companions, to whom it is wholly indifferent whether we give them trouble or not. The case would be quite otherwise if you were with me; you could refuse to see any body, and here is a large house where we need not hear each other if we were both sick. I have a race of orderly elderly people of both sexes at command, who are of no consequence, and have gifts proper for attending us; who can bawl when I am deaf, and tread softly when I am only giddy and would sleep.

I had another reason for my haste hither, which was changing my agent, the old one having terribly involved my little affairs; to which however I am grown so indifferent, that I believe I shall lose two or three hundred pounds rather than plague myself with accompts: so that I am very well qualified to be a lord, and put into Peter Walter's hands.

Pray God continue and increase Mr. Congreve's amendment, though he does not deserve it like you, Rh