“Sir, you have very much helped me already, and do continue to help me so long as you are good enough to speak to me of my lady and to let me speak with you of her. I don’t know why I should thus burden you with my sad and passionate humours, but I have feared now and again lest I should go mad through having none with whom I might speak on this topic, and in you I find always a sympathy that encourages me to continue.” Methought that I might well have sympathy with him, since my case was even worse than his own; but this I did not say, only declaring to him that whatever I might do for his comfort should be done, and entreating him to take courage and look confidently for deliverance and enlargement. And this he did, following my counsel with a very childlike and perfect trust in God that moved me to admiration, since he strove always to accustom himself to the will of Providence, and would pass quickly from despondency to comfort, reminding himself of the many blessings he enjoyed that one in his situation could not have looked for nor expected. And this I may as well say now as afterwards--viz., that that which time led me most to admire in this gentleman was that he bare all untoward chances with a great patience, receiving them as from the hand of God, which at first did much surprise me; for my bane in life hath ever been a certain heat and rashness, such as hath carried me on without reflection to do deeds that had been better undone. And these deeds once done, ’twas natural to me to sit down in a sort of sullenness and as it were pagan resignation, as who should say, _’Tis done now, and can’t be undone. Let Fortune do her worst. ’Tis naught to me._ But the viscount was wont to take the buffets of fate most calmly, as though they were but parts of a lesson that it should be well for him to learn, and to strange chances and vicissitudes he endeavoured always to fit himself, since it was God’s will for him to undergo them. And I once making him some compliment upon the firmness and constancy of his carriage, “Mr Carlyon,” says he, “you don’t know what it is to belong to an oppressed people. In France we Hugonots are thankful if it be permitted us to breathe in peace, and we are glad to seize upon any opportunity of quiet living that offers itself without dishonour. ’Tis a good school for the teaching contentment.”