_Miss Vanhomrigh to Swift: Dublin, 1720._ * * "I believe you thought I only rallied when I told you the other night that I would pester you with letters. Once more I advise you, if you have any regard for your quiet, to alter your behaviour quickly; for I do assure you I have too much spirit to sit down contented with this treatment. Because I love frankness extremely, I here tell you now that I have determined to try all manner of human arts to reclaim you; and, if all these fail, I am resolved to have recourse to the black one, which, it is said, never does. Now see what inconveniency you will bring both yourself and me unto * *. When I undertake a thing, I don't love to do it by halves." _Swift to Miss Vanhomrigh: Dublin, 1720._ "If you write as you do, I shall come the seldomer on purpose to be pleased with your letters, which I never look into without wondering how a brat that cannot read can possibly write so well. * * Raillery apart, I think it inconvenient, for a hundred reasons, that I should make your house a sort of constant dwelling-place. I will certainly come as often as I conveniently can; but my health and the perpetual run of ill weather hinder me from going out in the morning, and my afternoons are taken up I know not how; so that I am in rebellion with a hundred people besides yourself for not seeing them. For the rest, you need make use of no other black art besides your ink. It is a pity your eyes are not black, or I would have said the same; but you are a white witch, and can do no mischief." _Swift to Miss Vanhomrigh: Dublin, 1720._ "I received your letter when some company was with me on Saturday night, and it put me in such confusion that I could not tell what to do. This morning a woman who does business for me told me she heard I was in love with one, naming you, and twenty particulars; that little master ---- and I visited you, and that the Archbishop did so; and that you had abundance of wit, &c. I ever feared the tattle of this nasty town, and told you so; and that was the reason why I said to you long ago that I would see you seldom when you were in Ireland; and I must beg you to be easy, if, for some time, I visit you seldomer, and not in so particular a manner."