Paris.
Your setting out for London immediately on the receipt of my letter, is
what might have been expected.—Nothing renders a man so active as an
eager desire of doing good; and I might have foreseen, that you would
catch at the opportunity with which I furnished you to indulge a ruling
passion.
It gives me great satisfaction to know, that our young friend and you are
upon such a confidential footing; and I heartily hope that nothing will
interrupt a connection which must be a source of pleasing reflection to
you, and in every way advantageous to him.—I had no doubt that he would
readily agree to accompany you to the country; but I was not so certain
that he might not have found it necessary to accept of your other very
friendly proposal.—His refusal is a proof, that he has reconciled his
mind to his circumstances; and, with those sentiments, I am convinced
that he will be able to live within his remaining yearly income with more
satisfaction than he enjoyed when he spent five times that sum.—
You insist so much on my writing to you regularly, from the different
places where I may reside during my absence from England, that I begin to
believe you are in earnest, and shall certainly obey your commands.
I know you do not expect from me a minute account of churches and
palaces. However agreeable these may be to the spectator, they generally
afford but a slender entertainment when served up in description.
There are countries, some of which I may again visit before my return to
England, whose appearance always strikes the eye with delight; but it
is difficult to convey a precise idea of their beauties in words. The
pencil is a more powerful vehicle than the pen for that purpose; for the
landscape is apt to vanish from the mind before the description can be
read.
The manners, customs, and characters of the people may probably
furnish the chief materials in the correspondence you exact, with
such reflections as may arise from the subject. In these, I apprise
you before-hand, I shall take what latitude I please: And though the
complexion of my letters may most probably receive some tint or shade
of colouring from the country where they may be wrote; yet if I take it
into my head to insist on the little tricks of an attorney, when you
expect to hear of the politics of a prime minister; or, if I tell you a
tale about an old woman, when you are impatient for anecdotes of a great
general, you must not fret or fall into a passion; for if you do not
permit me to write on what subjects I please, and treat them in my own
way, the correspondence you require would become a sad slavery to me,
and of consequence no amusement to you. Whereas, if you leave me free
and unrestrained, it will at least form some occupation to myself, may
wean me from the habit of lounging, and will afford an excuse, in my own
mind, for my leaving those parties of pleasure where people are apt to
continue, forcing smiles, and yawning spontaneously for two or three
hours after all relish is fled.
Yet in this dismal condition many remain night after night, because the
hour of sleep is not yet arrived;—and what else can they do?
Have you never found yourself in this listless situation? Without any
pleasure where you are, without any motive to be gone, you remain in
a kind of passive, gaping oyster-state, till the tide of the company
moves you to your carriage. And when you recover your reflection in your
bed-chamber, you find you have passed the two last hours in a kind of
humming buzzing stupor, without satisfaction, or ideas of any kind.
I thank you for your offer of Dupont. Knowing your regard for him, and
his dexterity and intelligence in the science of valet-de-chambreship, I
see the full force of the sacrifice you are willing to make. If I could
be so selfish on another occasion as to accept your offer, the good-will
I bear to your old friend John would prevent me at present. Dupont, to
be sure, is worth twenty of John for that employment; but I can never
forget his long attachment, and I am now so habituated to him, that one
generally esteemed a more perfect servant would not suit me so well. I
think myself benefited even by his deficiencies, which have obliged me to
do many things for myself that other people perform by the hands of their
servants. Many of our acquaintances seem absolutely incapable of motion,
till they have been wound up by their valets. They have no more use of
their hands for any office about their own persons, than if they were
paralytic. At night they must wait for their servants, before they can
undress themselves, and go to bed: In the morning, if the valet happen
to be out of the way, the master must remain helpless and sprawling in
bed, like a turtle on its back upon the kitchen-table of an alderman.