My dearest cousin,
Your kindness reduces me to a necessity (a pleasant one, indeed), of
writing all my letters in the same terms: always thanks, thanks at
the beginning, and thanks at the end. It is however, I say, a pleasant
employment when those thanks are indeed the language of the heart: and
I can truly add, that there is no person on earth whom I thank with
so much affection as yourself. You insisted that I should give you my
genuine opinion of the wine. By the way, it arrived without the least
damage or fracture, and I finished the first bottle of it this very
day. It is excellent, and though the wine which I had been used to
drink was not bad, far preferable to that. The bottles will be in town
on Saturday. I am enamoured of the desk and its contents before I see
them. They will be most entirely welcome. A few years since I made
Mrs. Unwin a present of a snuff-box--a silver one; the purchase was
made in London by a friend; it is of a size and form that make it
more fit for masculine than feminine use. She therefore with pleasure
accepts the box which you have sent--I should say with the greatest
pleasure. And I, discarding the leathern trunk that I have used so
long, shall succeed to the possession of hers. She says, Tell Lady
Hesketh that I truly love and honour her. Now, my Cousin, you may
depend upon it, as a most certain truth, that these words from her
lips are not an empty sound. I never in my life heard her profess a
regard for any one that she felt not. She is not addicted to the use
of such language upon ordinary occasions; but when she speaks it,
speaks from the heart. She has baited me this many a day, even as a
bear is baited, to send for Dr. Kerr. But, as I hinted to you upon
a former occasion, I am as mulish as most men are, and have hitherto
most ungallantly refused; but what is to be done now?--If it were
uncivil not to comply with the solicitations of one lady, to be
unmoved by the solicitations of two would prove me to be a bear
indeed. I will, therefore, summon him to consideration of said
stomach, and its ailments, without delay, and you shall know the
result.--I have read Goldsmith's _Traveller_ and his _Deserted
Village_, and am highly pleased with them both, as well for the manner
in which they are executed, as for their tendency, and the lessons
that they inculcate.
Mrs. Unwin said to me a few nights since, after supper, 'I have two
fine fowls in feeding, and just fit for use; I wonder whether I should
send them to Lady Hesketh?' I replied, Yes, by all means! and I will
tell you a story that will at once convince you of the propriety of
doing so. My brother was curate on a time to Mr. Fawkes, of Orpington,
in Kent: it was when I lived in the Temple. One morning, as I was
reading by the fireside, I heard a prodigious lumbering at the door. I
opened it, and beheld a most rural figure, with very dirty boots, and
a great coat as dirty. Supposing that my great fame as a barrister had
drawn upon me a client from some remote region, I desired him to walk
in. He did so, and introduced himself to my acquaintance by telling me
that he was the farmer with whom my brother lodged at Orpington.
After this preliminary information he unbuttoned his great coat, and I
observed a quantity of long feathers projected from an inside pocket.
He thrust in his hand, and with great difficulty extricated a great
fat capon. He then proceeded to lighten the other side of him, by
dragging out just such another, and begged my acceptance of both.
I sent them to a tavern, where they were dressed, and I with two or
three friends, whom I invited to the feast, found them incomparably
better than any fowls we had ever tasted from the London co-ops. Now,
said I to Mrs. Unwin, it is likely that the fowls at Olney may be as
good as the fowls at Orpington, therefore send them; for it is not
possible to make so good a use of them in any other way ... Adieu, my
faithful, kind, and consolatory friend!