Pay the bearer 99,000,000,000 and a few millions, within six days, on sight.
Mademoiselle Suson Brun, the Her-Gracht, Amsterdam.
VIII
THE ANSWER TO THE ABOVE
Monsieur,—I am in receipt of yours of the 6th inst., and seeing you have drawn on me a bill of 99,000,000,000, I shall not fail to meet it when due; if there is anything in this city that I can do for you, I am yours to command. That is, Monsieur, the extent of the business gibberish I have acquired in five years' time. If you ask me only to acknowledge the receipt of your letter, you are now satisfied; but I should not be if I did not speak a language less barbarous and more intelligible than that one to persons like you and me. So I shall tell you, Monsieur, that of all the letters that I have received from you, none pleased me more than the last. You ever love me, you say, and if you read some sweet thing, you remember me; I own I did not dare expect that from you; not but that I know you to be a sincere and true friend, but I was afraid of the distance, the fine ladies you would find in England and the persons of merit[297] you see every day; but above all I was afraid of human nature, unfit, it is said, for constancy; I beg your pardon, Monsieur, if I have confounded you with so many people from whom you deserve to be distinguished, as much on this score as on others already known to me ere I was convinced of the last.
If the esteem I have for you was not of the highest, it would no doubt increase on discovering in you so rare a virtue, for I terribly love kind friends, and though of a sex to whose lot levity falls, nothing would pain me more than to cease loving one I had loved: what pleasure therefore it is for me who have loved, love, and will love you all my life, to have a friend such as I should wish to have! Ever love me, dear Monsieur, and believe that the brightness of gold, though I am in Holland, will never cause me such pleasure as the mere thought of having a friend tried by time. But I know not of what I am thinking. You ask only for a compliment and I am returning professions of love and lengthily too; no matter, compliments are only compliments, that is to say speeches generally devoid of meaning and that are far from expressing the true feelings of the heart, consequently they would be unfit to express the sincerity of the friendship I entertain for you; for
Of loyal friends if the fashion is lost,
I still love as women loved of old.
I write down those lines with a trembling hand, not knowing very well how that sort of thing must be put, but the lines express so fully my meaning that I thought you might overstep the rules, if the rhythm is not right; however that may be, you must be persuaded that such are the feelings of your kind friend.
(From Amsterdam, 3rd March 1699.)