But there is nothing under heaven so difficult to do. Creatures who are formed for motion _must_ move, however great their inducements to forbear. The wisest course I could take, would be to bid an eternal adieu to writing; then would the cry be, 'Tis pity she does not go on!--she might do something better by and by', &c, &c. _Evelina_, as a first and a youthful publication, has been received with the utmost favour and lenity; but would a future attempt be treated with the same mercy?--no, my dear Susy, quite the contrary; there would not, indeed, be the same plea to save it; it would no longer be a young lady's _first_ appearance in public; those who have met with less indulgence would all peck at any second work; and even those who most encouraged the first offspring might prove enemies to the second, by receiving it with expectations which it could not answer: and so, between either the friends or the foes of the eldest, the second would stand an equally bad chance, and a million of flaws which were overlooked in the former would be ridiculed as villainous and intolerable blunders in the latter. But, though my eyes ache as I strain them to look forward, the temptations before me are almost irresistible; and what you have transcribed from Mrs. Thrale may, perhaps, prove my destruction. So you wish to have some of the sayings of the folks here about _the book_? I am sure I owe you all the communications I can possibly give you; but I have nothing new to offer, for the same strain prevails here as in town; and no one will be so obliging to me as to put in a little abuse: so that I fear you will be satiated with the sameness of people's remarks. Yet, what can I do? if they _will_ be so disagreeable and tiresome as to be all of one mind, how is it to be helped? I can only advise you to follow my example, which is, to accommodate my philosophy to their insipidity; and in this I have so wonderfully succeeded, that I hear their commendations not merely with patience but even with a degree of pleasure! Such, my dear Susy, is the effect of true philosophy. You desire Kitty Cooke's remarks in particular. I have none to give you, for none can I get. To the serious part she indeed listens, and seems to think it may possibly be very fine; but she is quite lost when the Branghtons and Madame Duval are mentioned;--she hears their speeches very composedly, and as words of course; but when she hears them followed by loud bursts of laughter from Hetty, Mr. Crisp, Mrs. Gast, and Mr. Burney, she stares with the gravest amazement, and looks so aghast, and so distressed to know where the joke can be, that I never dare trust myself to look at her for more than an instant. Were she to speak her thoughts, I am sure she would ask why such common things, that pass every day, should be printed? And all the derision with which the party in general treat the Branghtons, I can see she feels herself, with a plentiful addition of astonishment, for the _author_!