144 oLi?EE GOLDSMITH'S LIFE AND TIMES. [BOOK n.
1758. What indeed may he not freely expect, who is to receive
nothing! Nevertheless, there is a worse fool's paradise
than that of expectation. To teach our tears the easiest
way to flow, should be no unvalued part of this world's
wisdom; hope is a good friend, even when the only one;
and Goldsmith was not the worse for expecting, though
he received nothing. Mr. Mills left his poor requests
unheeded, and his letter unacknowledged. Sharking hook-
sellers and starving authors might devour each other before
he would interpose; being a man, as his old sizar-relative
delicately hinted, with paternal acres as well as boyish
friendships to cultivate, and fewer thorns of the world to
struggle with, than hawthorns of his own to sleep under.
He lived to repent it certainly, and to profess great
veneration for the distinguished writer to whom he boasted
relationship; but Goldsmith had no more pleasant hopes
or friendly correspondences to fling away upon Mr. Mills
of Bosconimon. Not that even this letter, as it seems to
me, had been one of very confident expectation. Unusual
effort is manifest in it;—a reluctance to bring unseemly
fancies between the wind and Mr. Mills's gentility; a
conventional style of balance between the " pleasure " and
the " uneasiness " it talks about;—in short, a forced sup-
pression of everything in his own state that may affront the
acres and the hawthorns.
Seven days afterwards he wrote to Bryanton, with a
curious contrast of tone and manner. Even Bryanton had
not inquired for him since the scenes of happier years.
The affectionate rememberings of the lonely wanderer, as
of the struggling author, he had in carelessness, if not in
coldness, passed without return. Yet here heart spoke to
heart; buoyant, unreserved, and sanguine. That sorrow