Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales Part 56

There has been a man here to-day to take a farm. After some talk, he went to see the bull, and said, that he had seen a bigger. Do you think he is likely to get the farm?

_Toujours_ strawberries and cream.

Dr. Taylor is much better, and my rheumatism is less painful. Let me hear, in return, as much good of you and of Mrs. Salusbury. You despise the Dog and Duck: things that are at hand are always slighted. I remember that Dr. Grevil, of Gloucester, sent for that water when his wife was in the same danger; but he lived near Malvern, and you live near the Dog and Duck. Thus, in difficult cases, we naturally trust most what we least know.

Why Bromefield, supposing that a lotion can do good, should despise laurel-water, in comparison with his own receipt, I do not see; and see, still less, why he should laugh at that which Wall thinks efficacious. I am afraid philosophy will not warrant much hope in a lotion.

Be pleased to make my compliments from Mrs. Salusbury to Susy. I am, &c.

IX.--To THE SAME.

October 31, 1772.

MADAM,--Though I am just informed, that, by some accidental negligence, the letter, which I wrote on Thursday, was not given to the post, yet I cannot refuse myself the gratification of writing again to my mistress; not that I have any thing to tell, but that, by showing how much I am employed upon you, I hope to keep you from forgetting me.

Doctor Taylor asked me, this morning, on what I was thinking; and I was thinking on Lucy. I hope Lucy is a good girl. But she cannot yet be so good as Queeney. I have got nothing yet for Queeney's cabinet.

I hope dear Mrs. Salusbury grows no worse. I wish any thing could be found that would make her better. You must remember her admonition, and bustle in the brewhouse. When I come, you may expect to have your hands full with all of us.

Our bulls and cows are all well, but we yet hate the man that had seen a bigger bull. Our deer have died, but many are left. Our waterfall, at the garden, makes a great roaring this wet weather.

And so no more at present from, madam, your, &c.

X.--To MRS. THRALE.

November 23, 1772.

DEAR MADAM,--I am sorry that none of your letters bring better news of the poor dear lady. I hope her pain is not great. To have a disease confessedly incurable, and apparently mortal, is a very heavy affliction; and it is still more grievous, when pain is added to despair.

Every thing else in your letter pleased me very well, except that when I come I entreat I may not be flattered, as your letters flatter me. You have read of heroes and princes ruined by flattery, and, I question, if any of them had a flatterer so dangerous as you. Pray keep strictly to your character of governess.

I cannot yet get well; my nights are flatulent and unquiet, but my days are tolerably easy, and Taylor says, that I look much better than when I came hither. You will see when I come, and I can take your word.

Our house affords no revolutions. The great bull is well. But I write, not merely to think on you, for I do that without writing, but to keep you a little thinking on me. I perceive that I have taken a broken piece of paper, but that is not the greatest fault that you must forgive in, madam, your, &c.

XI.--To MRS. THRALE.

November 27, 1772.

DEAR MADAM,--If you are so kind as to write to me on Sat.u.r.day, the day on which you will receive this, I shall have it before I leave Ashbourne. I am to go to Lichfield on Wednesday, and purpose to find my way to London, through Birmingham and Oxford.

I was yesterday at Chatsworth. It is a very fine house. I wish you had been with me to see it; for then, as we are apt to want matter of talk, we should have gained something new to talk on. They complimented me with playing the fountain, and opening the cascade. But I am of my friend's opinion, that when one has seen the ocean, cascades are but little things.

I am in hope of a letter to-day from you or Queeney, but the post has made some blunder, and the packet is not yet distributed. I wish it may bring me a little good of you all. I am, &c.

XII.--To THE SAME.

Tuesday, Jan. 26, 1773.

MADAM,--The inequalities of human life have always employed the meditation of deep thinkers, and I cannot forbear to reflect on the difference between your condition and my own. You live upon mock-turtle, and stewed rumps of beef; I dined, yesterday, upon crumpets. You sit with parish officers, caressing and caressed, the idol of the table, and the wonder of the day. I pine in the solitude of sickness, not bad enough to be pitied, and not well enough to be endured. You sleep away the night, and laugh, or scold away the day. I cough and grumble, and grumble and cough. Last night was very tedious, and this day makes no promises of much ease. However, I have this day put on my shoe, and hope that gout is gone. I shall have only the cough to contend with, and I doubt whether I shall get rid of that without change of place. I caught cold in the coach as I went away, and am disordered by very little things. Is it accident or age? I am, dearest madam, &c.

XIII.--To MRS. THRALE.

March 17, 1773.

DEAR MADAM,--To tell you that I am sorry, both for the poor lady and for you, is useless. I cannot help either of you. The weakness of mind is, perhaps, only a casual interruption or intermission of the attention, such as we all suffer when some weighty care or urgent calamity has possession of the mind. She will compose herself. She is unwilling to die, and the first conviction of approaching death raised great perturbation. I think she has but very lately thought death close at hand. She will compose herself to do that as well as she can, which must, at last, be done. May she not want the divine a.s.sistance!

You, madam, will have a great loss; a greater than is common in the loss of a parent. Fill your mind with hope of her happiness, and turn your thoughts first to him who gives and takes away, in whose presence the living and dead are standing together. Then remember, that when this mournful duty is paid, others yet remain of equal obligation, and, we may hope, of less painful performance. Grief is a species of idleness, and the necessity of attention to the present preserves us, by the merciful disposition of providence, from being lacerated and devoured by sorrow for the past. You must think on your husband and your children, and do what this dear lady has done for you.

Not to come to town while the great struggle continues is, undoubtedly, well resolved. But do not hara.s.s yourself into danger; you owe the care of your health to all that love you, at least to all whom it is your duty to love. You cannot give such a mother too much, if you do not give her what belongs to another. I am, &c.

XIV.--To MRS. THRALE.

April 27, 1773.

DEAR MADAM,--Hope is more pleasing than fear, but not less fallacious; you know, when you do not try to deceive yourself, that the disease, which at last is to destroy, must be gradually growing worse, and that it is vain to wish for more than, that the descent to death may be slow and easy. In this wish I join with you, and hope it will be granted.

Dear, dear lady, whenever she is lost she will be missed, and whenever she is remembered she will be lamented. Is it a good or an evil to me, that she now loves me? It is surely a good; for you will love me better, and we shall have a new principle of concord; and I shall be happier with honest sorrow, than with sullen indifference: and far happier still than with counterfeited sympathy.

I am reasoning upon a principle very far from certain, a confidence of survivance. You or I, or both, may be called into the presence of the supreme judge before her. I have lived a life of which I do not like the review. Surely I shall, in time, live better.

I sat down with an intention to write high compliments; but my thoughts have taken another course, and some other time must now serve to tell you with what other emotions, benevolence, and fidelity, I am, &c.

XV.--To THE SAME.

May 17, 1773.

MADAM,--Never imagine that your letters are long; they are always too short for my curiosity. I do not know that I was ever content with a single perusal.

Of dear Mrs. Salusbury I never expect much better news than you send me; _de pis en pis_ is the natural and certain course of her dreadful malady. I am content, when it leaves her ease enough for the exercise of her mind. Why should Mr. **** suppose, that what I took the liberty of suggesting, was concerted with you? He does not know how much I revolve his affairs, and how honestly I desire his prosperity. I hope he has let the hint take some hold of his mind.

Your declaration to Miss **** is more general than my opinions allow. I think an unlimited promise of acting by the opinion of another so wrong, that nothing, or hardly anything, can make it right. All unnecessary vows are folly, because they suppose a prescience of the future which has not been given us. They are, I think, a crime, because they resign that life to chance which G.o.d has given us to be regulated by reason; and superinduce a kind of fatality, from which it is the great privilege of our nature to be free. Unlimited obedience is due only to the universal father of heaven and earth. My parents may be mad and foolish; may be wicked and malicious; may be erroneously religious, or absurdly scrupulous. I am not bound to compliance with mandates, either positive or negative, which either religion condemns, or reason rejects. There wanders about the world a wild notion, which extends over marriage more than over any other transaction. If Miss **** followed a trade, would it be said, that she was bound, in conscience, to give or refuse credit at her father's choice? And is not marriage a thing in which she is more interested, and has, therefore, more right of choice? When I may suffer for my own crimes, when I may be sued for my own debts, I may judge, by parity of reason, for my own happiness. The parent's moral right can arise only from his kindness, and his civil right only from his money.

Conscience cannot dictate obedience to the wicked, or compliance with the foolish; and of interest mere prudence is the judge.

If the daughter is bound without a promise, she promises nothing; and if she is not bound, she promises too much.

What is meant by tying up money in trade I do not understand No money is so little tied, as that which is employed in trade. Mr. ****, perhaps, only means, that in consideration of money to be advanced, he will oblige his son to be a trader. This is reasonable enough. Upon ten thousand pounds, diligently occupied, they may live in great plenty and splendour, without the mischiefs of idleness.

I can write a long letter, as well as my mistress; and shall be glad that my long letters may be as welcome as hers.

My nights are grown again very uneasy and troublesome. I know not that the country will mend them; but I hope your company will mend my days.