whether you are so thoroughly warranted to call other people to account
for their warmth. Should we not be particularly careful to keep clear
of the faults we censure?--And yet I am so angry both at my brother and
sister, that I should not have taken this liberty with my dear friend,
notwithstanding I know you never loved them, had you not made so light
of so shocking a transaction where a brother's life was at stake: when
his credit in the eye of the mischievous sex has received a still deeper
wound than he personally sustained; and when a revival of the same
wicked resentments (which may end more fatally) is threatened.

His credit, I say, in the eye of the mischievous sex: Who is not
warranted to call it so; when it is re (as the two libertines his
companions gloried) to resolve never to give a challenge; and among whom
duelling is so fashionable a part of brutal bravery, that the man of
temper, who is, mostly, I believe, the truly brave man, is often at
a loss so to behave as to avoid incurring either a mortal guilt, or a
general contempt?

To enlarge a little upon this subject, May we not infer, that those who
would be guilty of throwing these contempts upon a man of temper, who
would rather pass by a verbal injury, than to imbrue his hands in blood,
know not the measure of true magnanimity? nor how much nobler it is to
forgive, and even how much more manly to despise, than to resent, an
injury? Were I a man, methinks, I should have too much scorn for a
person, who could wilfully do me a mean wrong, to put a value upon his
life, equal to what I put upon my own. What an absurdity, because a man
had done me a small injury, that I should put it in his power (at least,
to an equal risque) to do me, and those who love me, an irreparable
one!--Were it not a wilful injury, nor avowed to be so, there could not
be room for resentment.

How willingly would I run away from myself, and what most concerns
myself, if I could! This digression brings me back again to the occasion
of it--and that to the impatience I was in, when I ended my last
letter, for my situation is not altered. I renew, therefore, my former
earnestness, as the new day approaches, and will bring with it perhaps
new trials, that you will (as undivestedly as possible of favour or
resentment) tell me what you would have me do:--for, if I am obliged to
go to my uncle Antony's, all, I doubt, will be over with me. Yet how to
avoid it--that's the difficulty!

I