“As this will come to you by my servant, give me leave to add a word on your most unfounded idea that I can forget you, because it is almost impossible for me ever to meet you. Believe me, I heartily regret that privation, but would not repine, were your situation, either in point of fortune or position, equal in any degree to your merit. But were your talents given to be buried in obscurity? You have retired from the world to a closet at Court--where, indeed, you will still discover mankind, though not disclose it; for if you could penetrate its characters, in the earliest glimpse of its superficies, will it escape your piercing eye when it shrinks from your inspection, knowing that you have the mirror of truth in your pocket? I will not embarrass you by saying more, nor would have you take notice of, or reply to what I have said: judge only, that feeling hearts reflect, not forget. Wishes that are empty look like vanity; my vanity is to be thought capable of esteeming you as much as you deserve, and to be reckoned, though a very distant, a most _sincere_ friend,--and give me leave to say, dear Madam, your most obedient humble servant, HOR. WALPOLE. “Strawberry Hill, October, ’90.” [133] The Cholmondeleys. [134] The weak and indolent character of Mr. Berry made him always and everywhere a cipher. [135] Queen Mary asked some of her attendant ladies what a squeeze of the hand was supposed to intimate. They said “Love.” “Then,” said the Queen, “my vice-chamberlain must be violently in love with me, for he always squeezes my hand.” [136] ‘Anecdotes,’ etc., by Lætitia Matilda Hawkins, 1822. [137] ‘Walpoliana,’ Preface. [138] As early as 1754 he wrote to Bentley: “You know I never drink three glasses of any wine.” [139] “A hat, you know, I never wear, my breast I never button, nor wear great coats, etc.”--Letter to Cole, Feb. 14, 1782. End of Project Gutenberg's Horace Walpole and his World, by Horace Walpole