"MADAM:--I am not come out of England if I remain in the noblest part
of it, your mind. Yet I confess it is too much diminution to call
your mind any part of England, or this world, since every part of
even your body deserves titles to a higher dignity. No Prince would
be loath to die that were assured of so fair a tomb to preserve his
memory. But I have a greater advantage than this, for since there is
a religion in friendship, and death in absence, to make up an entire
friend there must needs be a heaven too; and there can be no heaven
so proportional to that religion and that death, as your favor.
And I am the gladder that it is a heaven, than it were a court, or
any other high place of this world, because I am likelier to have
a room there, and better, cheap. Madam, my best treasure is time,
and my best employment of that (next my thoughts of thankfulness
to my Redeemer) is to study good wishes for you, in which I am, by
continual meditation, so learned that any creature except your own
good angel, when it does you most good, might be content to come and
take instruction from
Your humble and affectionate servant,
J. D.