CHAP. IlLj ATf TO 1SGAPI FBOM LITIRATUfiE,
wfor every acknowledgment for past favours might be eonsidewd as
K aaa indirect request for future ones, and where it might be thought
u I gave my heart from a motive of gratitude alone, when I was
a conscious of having bestowed it on much more disinterested principles.
"It is true, this conduct might have been simple enough, but yourself
" must confess it was in character. Those who know me at all know
"that I have always been actuated by different principles from the
" rest of mankind, and while none regarded the interest of las friend
" more, no man on earth regarded his own less. I have often affected
"bluntness to avoid the imputation of flattery, have frequently seemed
" to overlook those merits too obvious to escape notice, and pretended
" disregard to those instances of good nature and good sense, which I
K could not feil tacitly to applaud ; and all this lest I should be ranked
" amongst the grinning tribe, who say £ very true ' to all that is said,
** who fill a vacant chair at a tea-table, whose narrow souls never moved
" in a wider circle than the circumference of a guinea, and who had
" rather be reckoning the money in your pocket than the virtue of
" your breast. All this, I say, I have done, and a thousand other very
" silly though very disinterested things in my time, and for all which
" no soiil cares a farthing about me. God's curse, madam ! is it to be
" wondered, that he should once in his life forget you, who has been all
" his life forgetting himself 1
"However it is probable you may one of those days see me turned
"into a perfect hunks, and as dark and intricate as a mouse-hole.
" I have already given my landlady orders for an entire reform in
" the state of my finances. I declaim against hot suppers, drink less
"sugar in my tea, and check my grate with brickbats. Instead
"of hanging my room with pictures,, I intend to adorn it with,
"maxima of frugality^ Those will make pretty furniture enough,
" and won't be a bit too expensive; for I shall draw them all out
" with my own hands, and my landlady's daughter shall frame
"them with the parings of my black waisteoafe. Each maxim is
" to be inscribed on a sheet of clean paper, an>d wrote with my best
" pen ; of which the following will serve' as . a specimen. Look
" sharp : Mind the main chance; Money is money now ; If yout> have at,
"thousand pounds you can put your hands by your sides, and say you
"are worth a thousand pounds every day of the year; Take a farthing
"from a hundred, and it will ~be a hwidred no lo'hxjqir. Thus, which way
"soever I turn my eyes, they are sure to meet- ©fte of those-; friendly
" momfeors; and as we are told of an actor who hung his room round
M with looking-glass to correct the defects of his person, my apartment