To cast the fashion of uncertain evils;
For grant they be so, while they rest unknown,
Why need a man forestall his date of grief,
And run to meet what he would most avoid?”
“... I have two objects in a daily state of improvement—my nephew Montagu and my new house. Many people would say my pleasure in both will be less when they are arriv’d at their state of perfection, but I am not of that opinion. The pleasures of expectation and of possession are different, but the quiet serenity of the latter is, methinks, the best.”
To Mrs. Robinson. “December ye 29th, 1779. ... Our town amours present us with every thing that is horrible. Women without religion or virtue, and men void even of a sense of honour. Never till now did one hear of three divorces going forward in one session, in which the ladies of the most illustrious rank and families in Great Britain were concern’d. Lady Percy was the wife of a nobleman of a most distinguished merit, who had a mind too noble to be satisfied with the greatest hereditary wealth and honours, has, merely to serve his king and country, exposed himself to all the difficulties and dangers of military service. Lord Carmarthen is the prettiest man in his person; the most polite and pleasing in his manners, with a sweet temper and an excellent Understanding, happily cultivated. As to Lord Derby, to be sure, he has nothing on his side but the seventh commandment; but that should be sufficient, and was sufficient, in former times. Her family, it is said, triumph that this divorce is only an ugly step to an elevation of title. However, the name of an adulteress will surely blot whatever shall be written over it, even were it an imperial title. It is said, however, that Lord D. will be only divorced in the Spiritual Court; and, in that case, he will have the revenge of keeping her in her present awkward situation; but while he is punishing the faithless Wife, he is doing the greatest service to her gallant (the Duke of Dorset), whom he prevents from incurring infamy and also getting a most extravagant wife.
“I approve much of your getting a dance once a week for the young folks, and I am particularly glad my nephew is of the party. Grace of person is more important for a woman than a man; but the capacity of dancing a minouet is more serviceable to a young man, for, by so doing, he obliges many young ladies, while the minouet miss seldom pleases any girl but herself. Unless a girl is very beautiful, very well-shaped, and very genteel, she gives little pleasure to the spectators of her minouet; and, indeed, so unpolite are the setters-by in all assemblies, that they express a most ungrateful joy when the minouets are over. For my part, tho’ I feel as great ennui as my neighbours on those occasions, I never allow myself to appear so; for I look upon a minouet to be generally an act of filial piety, which gives real pleasure to fathers, mothers, and aunts.... In France, good minouets are clapped; but I believe no nation arrived at such a degree of civilization as to encore them.
“... I do not know whether I am more stupid than other people, but I neither find any of the vexation some find in building, nor the great amusement others tell me they experience in it. Indeed, if it were not that a house must be building before it can be built, I should never have been a builder.... I have not had a quarter of an hour’s pain or pleasure from the operation. I have not met with the least disappointment or mortification. It has gone on as fast and well as I expected, and, when it is habitable, I shall take great pleasure in it; for it is an excellent house, finely situated, and just such as I have always wish’d, but never hoped, to have.
“... I know that in some little alterations we made at Sandleford, the country workmen were so tedious, we were obliged to send for carpenters from London; but here we have such a plenty of Hands, that everything goes continually on.
