STRAWBERRY HILL, _July_ 28, 1765.
The less one is disposed, if one has any sense, to talk of oneself to
people that inquire only out of compliment, and do not listen to the
answer, the more satisfaction one feels in indulging a self-complacency,
by sighing to those that really sympathise with our griefs. Do not think
it is pain that makes me give this low-spirited air to my letter. No, it
is the prospect of what is to come, not the sensation of what is
passing, that affects me. The loss of youth is melancholy enough; but to
enter into old age through the gate of infirmity most disheartening. My
health and spirits make me take but slight notice of the transition,
and, under the persuasion of temperance being a talisman, I marched
boldly on towards the descent of the hill, knowing I must fall at last,
but not suspecting that I should stumble by the way. This confession
explains the mortification I feel. A month's confinement to one who
never kept his bed a day is a stinging lesson, and has humbled my
insolence to almost indifference. Judge, then, how little I interest
myself about public events. I know nothing of them since I came hither,
where I had not only the disappointment of not growing better, but a bad
return in one of my feet, so that I am still wrapped up and upon a
couch. It was the more unlucky as Lord Hertford is come to England for a
very few days. He has offered to come to me; but as I then should see
him only for some minutes, I propose being carried to town to-morrow. It
will be so long before I can expect to be able to travel, that my French
journey will certainly not take place so soon as I intended, and if Lord
Hertford goes to Ireland, I shall be still more fluctuating; for though
the Duke and Duchess of Richmond will replace them at Paris, and are as
eager to have me with them, I have had so many more years heaped upon me
within this month, that I have not the conscience to trouble young
people, when I can no longer be as juvenile as they are. Indeed I shall
think myself decrepit, till I again saunter into the garden in my
slippers and without my hat in all weathers,--a point I am determined to
regain if possible; for even this experience cannot make me resign my
temperance and my hardiness. I am tired of the world, its politics, its
pursuits, and its pleasures; but it will cost me some struggles before I
submit to be tender and careful. Christ! Can I ever stoop to the regimen
of old age? I do not wish to dress up a withered person, nor drag it
about to public places; but to sit in one's room, clothed warmly,
expecting visits from folks I don't wish to see, and tended and nattered
by relations impatient for one's death! Let the gout do its worse as
expeditiously as it can; it would be more welcome in my stomach than in
my limbs. I am not made to bear a course of nonsense and advice, but
must play the fool in my own way to the last, alone with all my heart,
if I cannot be with the very few I wished to see: but, to depend for
comfort on others, who would be no comfort to me; this surely is not a
state to be preferred to death: and nobody can have truly enjoyed the
advantages of youth, health, and spirits, who is content to exist
without the two last, which alone bear any resemblance to the first.
You see how difficult it is to conquer my proud spirit: low and weak as
I am, I think my resolution and perseverance will get the better, and
that I shall still be a gay shadow; at least, I will impose any severity
upon myself, rather than humour the gout, and sink into that indulgence
with which most people treat it. Bodily liberty is as dear to me as
mental, and I would as soon flatter any other tyrant as the gout, my
Whiggism extending as much to my health as to my principles, and being
as willing to part with life, when I cannot preserve it, as your uncle
Algernon when his freedom was at stake. Adieu!
_HAS REACHED PARIS--THE FRENCH OPERA--ILLNESS OF THE DAUPHIN--POPULARITY
OF MR. HUME._