If modesty be really one of those cumbrous virtues, which, like the ponderous armour of former days, is no longer necessary in the high state of civilization to which we have attained, why is not the word honestly banished along with the quality which it represents? and why do we foolishly retain the sign, if we must lose sight of the idea to which it belongs? It would be wrong, perhaps, to charge a modern fair one with actual vice because she can walk with perfect unconcern through files of statues representing the human form in a state of nudity, and _that_ too in company, it may be, of a profligate man; but I _must_ say, that to my untutored sense, the thing is very disgusting; and as London is certainly not the Garden of Eden, I should venture to add, that the practice is not very safe, unless moral virtue be no longer considered requisite to the well-being of the community, but with other antiquities is to be only reserved for the cabinets of the curious; _there_, as we view it clothed in venerable rust, to excite our astonishment at the difference between the clumsy accoutrements of our ancestors, and the convenient accommodations of our own time. I am interrupted by Mr. Otway, who sends his love, and bids me say, that he has a letter on the _anvil_; so I will send mine. But I have been led into the mazes of this brilliant scene, so far remote from _domestic_ subjects, that I find not a word in all my prosing of poor uncle, for whom I feel both tenderness and respect. He suffers much, and, if I am not greatly mistaken, has "that within which passeth shew." His mind appears to me as if it had gone out of Nature's loom a goodly tissue, but has been pulled _bias_ by untoward circumstances of fortune and ill health. As yet I know very little of him, and he is so reserved with his relations, that were there not certain loop-holes through which I peep into the interior, and thence form judgment of his true texture, the first and second words of Cæsar's _triplicate_ would answer every purpose of description in my instance; and in saying _veni vidi_, I should tell you all that is to be known; but I sometimes see him shake his head, and catch him now and then, his eyes suffused with tears, and fixed intently on me. The moment of observation is that of change, and, as a person who has dropped asleep in Church, coughs, hems, and kicks his heels, to _prove_ how much awake he is, so my uncle throws a tartness, an abruptness, into his manner after one of these little affectionate _lapses_, to assure us of the sternness of his character. My next shall be to Emily. Adieu, beloved! My heart is with you all, though the _casket_ be far from you. I shall have much to tell the three, _Graces_ I _will_ not call them, Furies I _cannot_ call them: what then _shall_ I call them? They shall be the _Destinies_, because my fate is in their hands, and as they love and value me through life, I shall be happy or the contrary.