I never wanted, nor am confident I never shall.  But yet, I would not be thought so inconsiderate a person as not to remember that it is expected from all people that have sense that they should act with reason, that to all persons some proportion of fortune is necessary, according to their several qualities, and though it is not required that one should tie oneself to just so much, and something is left for one’s inclination, and the difference in the persons to make, yet still within such a compass,—­and such as lay more upon these considerations than they will bear, shall infallibly be condemned by all sober persons.  If any accident out of my power should bring me to necessity though never so great, I should not doubt with God’s assistance but to bear it as well as anybody, and I should never be ashamed on’t if He pleased to send it me; but if by my own folly I had put it upon myself, the case would be extremely altered.  If ever this comes to a treaty, I shall declare that in my own choice I prefer you much before any other person in the world, and all that this inclination in me (in the judgment of any persons of honour and discretion) will bear, I shall desire may be laid upon it to the uttermost of what they can allow.  And if your father please to make up the rest, I know nothing that is like to hinder me from being yours.  But if your father, out of humour, shall refuse to treat with such friends as I have, let them be what they will, it must end here; for though I was content, for your sake, to lose them, and all the respect they had for me, yet, now I have done that, I’ll never let them see that I have so little interest in you and yours as not to prevail that my brother may be admitted to treat for me.  Sure, when a thing of course and so much reason as that (unless I did disclose to all the world he were my enemy), it must be expected whensoever I dispose of myself he should be made no stranger to it.  When that shall be refused me, I may be justly reproached that I deceived myself when I expected to be at all valued in a family that I am a stranger to, or that I should be considered with any respect because I had a kindness for you, that made me not value my own interests.

I doubt much whether all this be sense or not; I find my head so heavy.  But that which I would say is, in short, this:  if I did say once that my brother should have nothing to do in’t, ’twas when his carriage towards me gave me such an occasion as could justify the keeping that distance with him; but now it would look extremely unhandsome in me, and, sure, I hope your father would not require it of me.  If he does, I must conclude he has no value for me, and, sure, I never disobliged him to my knowledge, and should, with all the willingness imaginable, serve him if it lay in my power.

Good God! what an unhappy person am I. All the world is so almost.  Just now they are telling me of a gentleman near us that is the most wretched creature made (by the loss of a wife that he passionately loved) that can be.  If your father would but in some measure satisfy my friends that I might but do it in any justifiable manner, you should dispose me as you pleased, carry me whither you would, all places of the world would be alike to me where you were, and I should not despair of carrying myself so towards him as might deserve a better opinion from him.