lf in a galloping consumption, and the continual anxiety I
feel at the thought of leaving my child, feeds the fever that nightly
devours me. It is on her account that I again write to you, to conjure
you, by all that you hold sacred, to leave her here with the German lady
you may have heard me mention! She has a child of the same age, and they
may be brought up together, as I wish her to be brought up. I shall
write more fully on the subject. To facilitate this, I shall give up my
present lodgings, and go into the same house. I can live much cheaper
there, which is now become an object. I have had 3000 livres from ----,
and I shall take one more, to pay my servant's wages, &c. and then I
shall endeavour to procure what I want by my own exertions. I shall
entirely give up the acquaintance of the Americans.

---- and I have not been on good terms a long time. Yesterday he very
unmanlily exulted over me, on account of your determination to stay. I
had provoked it, it is true, by some asperities against commerce, which
have dropped from me, when we have argued about the propriety of your
remaining where you are; and it is no matter, I have drunk too deep of
the bitter cup to care about trifles.

When you first entered into these plans, you bounded your views to the
gaining of a thousand pounds. It was sufficient to have procured a farm
in America, which would have been an independence. You find now that you
did not know yourself, and that a certain situation in life is more
necessary to you than you imagined--more necessary than an uncorrupted
heart--For a year or two, you may procure yourself what you call
pleasure; eating, drinking, and women; but, in the solitude of declining
life, I shall be remembered with regret--I was going to say with remorse,
but checked my pen.

As I have never concealed the nature of my connection with you, your
reputation will not suffer. I shall never have a confident: I am content
with the approbation of my own mind; and, if there be a searcher of
hearts, mine will not be despised. Reading what you have written relative
to the desertion of women, I have often wondered how theory and practice
could be so different, till I recollected, that the sentiments of
passion, and the resolves of reason, are very distinct. As to my sisters,
as you are so continually hurried with business, you need not write to
them--I shall, when my mind is calmer. God bless you! Adieu!

* * * *

This has been such a