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1774] To tJie Hon. Henry Seymour Conway 55
through Berlin, should have no joy like avoiding him—like
one of our countrymen, who changed horses at Paris, and asked what the name of that town was. All the other civilities you have received I am perfectly happy in. The Germans are certainly a civil, well-meaning people, and, I believe, one of the least corrupted nations in Europe. I don't think them very agreeable; but who do I think are so ? A great many Frenchwomen, some Englishmen, and a few Englishwomen; exceedingly few Frenchmen. Italian women are the grossest, vulgarest of the sex. If an Italian man has a grain of sense, he is a buffoon. So much for Europe!
I have already told you, and so must Lady Ailesbury,
that my courage fails me, and I dare not meet you at Paris. As the period is arrived when the gout used to come, it is never a moment out of my head. Such a suffering, such a helpless condition as I was in for five months and a half, two years ago, makes me tremble from head to fool I should die at once if seized in a French, inn; or what, if possible, would be worse, at Paris, where I must admit everybody—I, who you know can hardly bear to see even you when I am ill, and who shut up myself here, and would not let Lord and Lady Hertford come near me—r- I, who have my room washed though in bed, how could I bear French dirt ? In short, I, who am so capricious, and whom you are pleased to call a philosopher, I suppose because I have given up everything but my own will—how could I keep my temper, who have no way of keeping my temper but by keeping it out of everybody's way! No» I must give up the satisfaction of being with you at Paris. I have just learnt to give up my pleasures, but I cannot give up my pains, which such selfish people as I, who have suffered much, grow to compose into a system that they are partial to, because it is their own. I must make myself |
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