I am glad to have people favorably impressed, because I feel lazy and
weak, unequal to the trouble of friction, or the pain of conquest.
Still, I feel a good deal of contempt for those so easily disconcerted
or reässured. I was not a child; I had lived in the midst of that New
England society, in a way that entitled me to esteem, and a favorable
interpretation, where there was doubt about my motives or actions. I
pity those who are inclined to think ill, when they might as well have
inclined the other way. However, let them go; there are many in the
world who stand the test, enough to keep us from shivering to death. I
am, on the whole, fortunate in friends whom I can truly esteem, and
in whom I know the kernel and substance of their being too well to be
misled by seemings.