Could I flatter myself I should ever be honored by your presence,
how happy I should be!----Your eye, I am sure, would catch pleasure
while it measures the surrounding landscape (even at this season
of the year) of russet lawns and grey fallows, on which stray the
nibbling flocks: the mountains too, which seem to support the
labouring clouds, add sublimity to the charming scene. When I take a
walk after a sedentary occupation, I feel a sensible pleasure; rest
in its turn becomes agreeable, if it has been preceded by a moderate
fatigue. Every action of our lives may be converted into a kind of
pleasure, if it is but well timed: Life owes all its joys to this
well-adapted succession; and he will never enjoy its true relish,
who does not know to blend pleasure with dissipation. I ask pardon
for detaining your ladyship so long--My cousin Lord Darnley has been
to see, and admires my cottage.--I perceive plainly he flatters
himself that you will one day make him happy. I do not presume to
offer my advice; it would be imitating the savage chief, who marks
out to the sun the course it is to take----but surely his respectful,
uninterrupted attachment deserves your consideration. Were I not
perfectly convinced of his worth and sincerity, I should be _the last_
person to speak in his behalf. The bitterness of conjugal repentance,
which I have experienced, is beyond all others poignant; and happy it
is if _disunion_, rather than perpetual _disagreement_, results from
it.
I ever am your ladyship's
Obliged and affectionate friend,
LUCY LEE.'
Lady Frances returned Mrs Lee immediately the following answer.
'Dear Madam, Munster-house.
I return you many thanks for the confidence you honored me with;
and I sincerely sympathize with you on the many disagreeable events
that have occurred to you. If my approbation can confer on you any
satisfaction, you possess it in a very eminent degree: for though I
cannot approve of your sentiments concerning divorce, etc. yet your
conduct in your family was exemplary.
There is no reasoning about the motions of the heart. Reflection and
sensation are extremely different--our affections are not in our own
power, though yours seem to have been under proper regulations.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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