on with the other (when they seldom were
together; and always parted with something to say; or, on recollection,
when parted, wishing they had said); that they are continually on the
wing in pursuit of amusements out of themselves; and those, concluded my
sage mamma, [Did you think her wisdom so very modern?] will perhaps be
the livelier to each, in which the other has no share.'

I told my mother, that if you were to take any rash step, it would be
owing to the indiscreet violence of your friends. I was afraid, I said,
that these reflection upon the conduct of people in the married state,
who might set out with better hopes, were but too well grounded: but
that this must be allowed me, that if children weighed not these matters
so thoroughly as they ought, neither did parents make those allowances
for youth, inclination, and inexperience, which had been found necessary
to be made for themselves at their children's time of life.

I remembered a letter, I told her, hereupon, which you wrote a few
months ago, personating an anonymous elderly lady (in Mr. Wyerley's
day of plaguing you) to Miss Drayton's mother, who, by her severity and
restraints, had like to have driven the young lady into the very fault
against which her mother was most solicitous to guard her. And I dared
to say, she would be pleased with it.

I fetched the first draught of it, which at my request you obliged me
at the time; and read the whole letter to my mother. But the following
passage she made me read twice. I think you once told me you had not a
copy of this letter.

'Permit me, Madam, [says the personated grave writer,] to observe, That
if persons of your experience would have young people look forward, in
order to be wiser and better by their advice, it would be kind in them
to look backward, and allow for their children's youth, and natural
vivacity; in other words, for their lively hopes, unabated by time,
unaccompanied by reflection, and unchecked by disappointment. Things
appear to us all in a very different light at our entrance upon
a favourite party, or tour; when, with golden prospects, and high
expectations, we rise vigorous and fresh like the sun beginning its
morning course; from what they do, when we sit down at the end of our
views, tired, and preparing for our journey homeward: for then we take
into our reflection, what we had left out in prospect, the fatigues,
the checks, the hazards, we had met with; and make a true estimate