announced the parson's horse, who recommending to Miss Flint to think no more of _such nonsense_, retreated." I will spare you the trouble of writing me an essay on anger. I know all you would say on such a topic, but it would be out of season; for I was not angry, Lucy: I am _never_ angry, but where I could like, and love, were it necessary. You must demonstrate some specific remedy for antipathies, before I can be benefited by the lecture you will be prompted to send me. Now, collect all the antipathies in nature, and they will not amount to that which this reptile Mr. Snughead has produced in Rachel Cowley's mind. Perhaps I was too warm; but what is to be done with antipathies? I have no talent at a fainting fit; I cannot scream, and look terrified when I want only the strength of a man, in order to grasp a despicable foe. Nature, nature, my Lucy, is my divinity! to her do I owe my aversion of the Snugheads' race; and when they do fall in my way, what is to be done? I cannot crush them, as many do a poor harmless spider; but I would probe them to the quick, without flinching. Some vices I can pity, but a spirit of defamation is my abhorrence; and an unworthy minister of a religion to which I am attached, as my supreme good, is my antipathy. So I beg you will recollect yours to a toad, and pardon your Rachel Cowley. P.S. I admire Seneca; but what was his age when he turned philosopher? In the name of good sense I implore you to ask your father how long a term he gives to infancy. I am now an infant of twenty years and twelve days, and I am a better philosopher than Seneca. Is it not astonishing that your father does not yet know Rachel Cowley! I pray every day for him, and with patient hope, trust he will one day repent of his _cruelty_, and see with his own clear-sighted understanding, instead of the borrowed light of a squint-eyed worldly prudence. LETTER XVI. _From the same to the same_. You cannot, I think, have forgotten, my dear Lucy, how often in the pride of my heart I have blessed nature for having compounded my character of better materials than those which our poet has inimitably given to a species of beings, who, in my opinion, only encumber the space allotted to mortals! "Yet Cloe sure was form'd without a spot; Nature in her then err'd not, but forgot; With every pleasing, every prudent part, Say, what does Cloe want? She wants a heart. She speaks, behaves, and acts just as she ought, But never, never reach'd one generous thought."