you to say it would be very uneasy
to me then, since 'tis not very pleasant to me now. Yet you will say I
take great pains to preserve it, as ill as I like it; but no, I'll swear
'tis not that I intend in what I do; all that I aim at is but to keep
myself from proving a beast. They do so fright me with strange stories
of what the spleen will bring me to in time, that I am kept in awe with
them like a child; they tell me 'twill not leave me common sense, that I
shall hardly be fit company for my own dogs, and that it will end either
in a stupidness that will make me incapable of anything, or fill my head
with such whims as will make me ridiculous. To prevent this, who would
not take steel or anything,--though I am partly of your opinion that
'tis an ill kind of physic. Yet I am confident that I take it the safest
way, for I do not take the powder, as many do, but only lay a piece of
steel in white wine over night and drink the infusion next morning,
which one would think were nothing, and yet 'tis not to be imagined how
sick it makes me for an hour or two, and, which is the misery, all that
time one must be using some kind of exercise. Your fellow-servant has a
blessed time on't that ever you saw. I make her play at shuttlecock with
me, and she is the veriest bungler at it ever you saw. Then am I ready
to beat her with the battledore, and grow so peevish as I grow sick,
that I'll undertake she wishes there were no steel in England. But then
to recompense the morning, I am in good humour all the day after for joy
that I am well again. I am told 'twill do me good, and am content to
believe it; if it does not, I am but where I was.

I do not use to forget my old acquaintances. Almanzor is as fresh in my
memory as if I had visited his tomb but yesterday, though it be at least
seven year agone since. You will believe I had not been used to great
afflictions when I made his story such a one to me, as I cried an hour
together for him, and was so angry with Alcidiana that for my life I
could never love her after it. You do not tell me whether you received
the books I sent you, but I will hope you did, because you say nothing
to the contrary. They are my dear Lady Diana's, and therefore I am much
concerned that they should be safe. And now I speak of her, she is
acquainted with your aunt, my Lady B., and says all that you say of her.
If her niece has so much wit, will you not be persuaded to like her; or
say she has not quite so m