Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 19.djvu/16

4 omits writing for a little while, and then one stays a while longer to consider of excuses, and at last it grows desperate and one does not write at all: At this rate I have served others, and have been served myself.

I wish I had a lexicon by me to find whether your Greek word be spelt and accented right; and I am very sorry you have made an acutum in ultima, as if you laid the greatest stress upon the worst part of the word. However, I protest against your meaning, or any interpretation you shall ever make of that nature out of my letters. If I thought you deserved any bitter words, I should either deliver them plainly, or hold my tongue altogether; for I esteem the custom of conveying one's resentments by hints or innuendoes to be a sign of malice, or fear, or too little sincerity; but I have told you coram et absens, that you are in your nature more sensible than you need be, and it is hard you cannot be satisfied with the esteem of the best among your neighbours, but lose your time in regarding what may be thought of you by one of my privacy and distance. I wish you could as easily make my esteem and friendship for you to be of any value, as you may be sure to command them.

I should be sorry if you have been at an inconvenience in hastening my accounts; and I dare refer you to my letters, that they will lay the fault upon yourself; for I think I desired more than once, that you would not make more dispatch than stood with your ease, because I was in no haste at all.

I desired of you two or three times that when you had sent me a catalogue of those few books, you