Thank heaven! we meet with few minds like that of Sir Charles Verville; such a degree of savage insensibility is unnatural.

The human heart is created weak, not wicked:  avid of pleasure and of gain; but with a mixture of benevolence which prevents our seeking either to the destruction of others.

Nothing can be more false than that we are naturally inclined to evil:  we are indeed naturally inclined to gratify the selfish passions of every kind; but those passions are not evil in themselves, they only become so from excess.

The malevolent passions are not inherent in our nature.  They are only to be acquired by degrees, and generally are born from chagrin and disappointment; a wicked character is a depraved one.

What must this unhappy girl have suffered! no misery can equal the struggles of a virtuous mind wishing to act in a manner becoming its own dignity, yet carried by passions to do otherwise.

One o’clock.

I have been at Sir William Verville’s, who is at Bath; I will write, and inclose the letter to him this evening; you shall have his answer the moment I receive it.

We are going to dine at Richmond with Lord H——.

Adieu! my dear Rivers; Bell complains you have never answered her letter:  I own, I thought you a man of more gallantry than to neglect a lady.

    Adieu! 
      Your faithful
          J. Fitzgerald.

LETTER 209.

To Captain Fitzgerald.

Bellfield, Oct. 30.

I am very impatient, my dear friend, till you hear from Sir William, though I have no doubt of his acting as he ought:  our cottagers shall not leave us till their fate is determined; I have not told Miss Williams the step I have taken.

Emily is more and more pleased with this amiable girl:  I wish extremely to be able to keep her here; as an agreable companion of her own age and sex, whose ideas are similar, and who, from being in the same season of life, sees things in the same point of view, is all that is wanting to Emily’s happiness.

’Tis impossible to mention similarity of ideas, without observing how exactly ours coincide; in all my acquaintance with mankind, I never yet met a mind so nearly resembling my own; a tie of affection much stronger than all your merit would be without that similarity.

I agree with you, that mankind are born virtuous, and that it is education and example which make them otherwise.

The believing other men knaves is not only the way to make them so, but is also an infallible method of becoming such ourselves.

A false and ill-judged method of instruction, by which we imbibe prejudices instead of truths, makes us regard the human race as beasts of prey; not as brothers, united by one common bond, and promoting the general interest by pursuing our own particular one.

There is nothing of which I am more convinced than that,