_Tuesday Morning [Paris, Dec. 31, 1793]._
Though I have just sent a letter off, yet, as captain ---- offers to take
one, I am not willing to let him go without a kind greeting, because
trifles of this sort, without having any effect on my mind, damp my
spirits:--and you, with all your struggles to be manly, have some of his
same sensibility.--Do not bid it begone, for I love to see it striving to
master your features; besides, these kind of sympathies are the life of
affection: and why, in cultivating our understandings, should we try to
dry up these springs of pleasure, which gush out to give a freshness to
days browned by care!
The books sent to me are such as we may read together; so I shall not look
into them till you return; when you shall read, whilst I mend my
stockings.
Yours truly,
MARY.