I engaged Lord B----, therefore, to pass the evening with him, and, without saying any thing directly of his situation, to endeavour to dispose his mind insensibly to a stoical resolution. You, my Lord, who are so well acquainted with Epictetus, says I, have now an opportunity of making some real use of him. Distinguish carefully between real and apparent good, between that which depends on ourselves and what is dependent on others. Demonstrate to him that, whatever threatens us from without, the cause of evil is within us; and that the wise man, being always on his guard, has his happiness ever in his own power. I understood by his Lordship’s answer that this stroke of irony, which could not offend him, served to excite his zeal, and that he counted much on sending his friend the next day well prepared. This indeed was the most I expected; for in reality, I place no great dependence, any more than yourself, on all that verbose philosophy. And yet I am persuaded a virtuous man must always feel some kind of shame, in changing at night the opinions he embraced in the morning, and in denying in his heart the next day what his reason dictated for truth the preceding night. Mr. Orbe was desirous of being of their party, and passing the evening with them; but to this I objected; as his presence might only disturb or lay a restraint on the conversation. The interest I have in him, does not prevent me from seeing he is not a match for the other two. The masculine turn of thinking in men of strong minds gives a peculiar idiom to their discourse, and makes them converse in a language to which Mr. Orbe is a stranger. In taking leave of them, I bethought me of the effects of his Lordship’s drinking punch; and, fearing he might when in liquor anticipate my design, I laughingly hinted as much to him: to which he answered, I might be assured he would indulge himself in such habits only when it could be of no ill effect; but that he was no slave to custom; that the interview intended concerned Eloisa’s honour, the fortune and perhaps the life of a man, and that man his friend. I shall drink my punch, continued he, as usual, lest it should give our conversation an air of reserve and preparation; but that punch shall be mere lemonade; and, as he drinks none, he will not perceive it. Don’t you think it, my dear, a great mortification to have contracted habits that make such precautions as these necessary?