I beseech you be pleased first to believe I have written
every post; but, secondly, since I came, and then to enquire for them,
that they may be commended into your hands, where alone they can hope
for a favourable residence; I am very much a sharer by sympathy, in
your Ladyship's satisfaction in the converse you had in the country,
and find that to that ingenious company Fortune hath been just, there
being no person fitter to receive all the admiration of persons best
capable to pay them, than the great _Berenice_....
And now (madam) why was that a cruel question, When will you come to
_Wales_? 'Tis cruel to me, I confess, that it is yet in question, but
I humbly beg your Ladyship to unriddle that part of your letter, for
I cannot understand why you, madam, who have no persons alive to whom
your birth hath submitted you, and have already by your life secured
to yourself the best opinion the world can give you, should create an
awe upon your own actions, from imaginary inconveniences: Happiness,
I confess, is two-faced, and one is opinion; but that opinion is
certainly _our own_; for it were equally ridiculous and impossible
to shape our _actions_ by others' _opinions_. I have had so much (and
some sad) reason to discuss this principle, that I can speak with some
confidence, That _none will ever be happy, who make their happiness to
consist in, or be governed by the votes of other persons._ I deny
not but the approbation of wise and good persons is a very necessary
satisfaction; but to forbear innocent contentments, only because it's
possible some fancies may be so capricious as to dispute whether I
should have taken them, is, in my belief, neither better nor worse
than to fast always, because there are some so superstitious in the
world, that will abstain from meat, upon some score or other, upon
every day in the year, that is, some upon some days, and others
upon others, and some upon all.
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