“Dear Sir,—I cannot tell you how often I have thought of thanking you for your kind letter. My controversy made me put it off some time, and, when I was going one day to answer you, a clergyman called upon me, read your letter, said you were a sensible author, and, if I would let him have it, he would let me have your ‘Fool of Quality,’ of which I had never heard. I forgot to take your address; but, after some months, my friend has sent me back your unexpected and welcome favour; and I now know in what street you live. A thousand thanks for your letter. May this sheet convey them from my heart to yours; and thence may they fall, like a thousand drops, into that immense ocean of goodness, truth, and love, whence come all the streams, which gladden the universe of God!
“I thankfully accept the pleasure, profit, and honour of your correspondence. But I must not deceive you; I have not yet learned the blessed precept of our Lord in respect of writing and receiving letters. I still find it more blessed to receive, than to give; and, till I have got out of this selfishness, never depend on a letter from me till you see it, and be persuaded, nevertheless, that one from you will always be welcome.
“I see, by your works, that you love truth, and that you will force your way, through all the barriers of prejudice, to embrace it in its meanest dress. That makes me love you. I hope to improve by your example and your lessons. One thing I want truly to learn, that is, that creatures and visible things are but shadows, and that God is God, Jehovah, the true, eternal Substance. To live practically in this truth is to live in the suburbs of heaven. Really to believe that in God we live, move, and have our being, is to find and enjoy the root of our existence: it is to slide from self into our original principle; from the carnal into the spiritual; from the visible into the invisible; from time into eternity. Give me, at your leisure, some directions, how to cease from busying myself about the husks of things, and how to break through the shell, so that I may come to the kernel of resurrection, life, and power, that lies hidden from the unbeliever’s sight.
“About feelings. Pray, my dear Sir, are you possessed of all the feelings of your Clinton, Clement, and Harry? Are they natural to you, I mean, previous to what we generally call conversion? I have often thought that some of the feelings you describe depend a good deal upon the fineness of the nerves, and bodily organs; and, as I am rather of a Stoic turn, I have, sometimes, comforted myself in thinking, that my want of feelings might, in a degree, proceed from the dulness of Swiss nerves. If I am not mistaken, Providence directs me to you to have this important question solved. May not some persons have as much true faith, love, humanity, and pity, as others who are ten times more affected, at least for a season? And what directions would you give to a Christian Stoic, if these two ideas are not absolutely incompatible?
“My Stoicism helps me, I think, to weather out a storm of displeasure, which my little pamphlets have raised against me. You see, I at once consult you as an old friend and spiritual casuist; nor know I how to testify better to you how unreservedly I begin to be, my very dear friend,
“Yours in the Lord,
“J. Fletcher.”[[566]]
Probably “The Fool of Quality” was the only novel Fletcher ever read; but it taught him to respect its author. It is more than doubtful, however, whether Fletcher’s letter ever reached the gentleman for whom it was intended. At all events, there is no evidence whatever that any correspondence took place between Henry Brooke, senior, and the Vicar of Madeley. Of course, Fletcher’s communication reached the nephew of Brooke, and, nearly ten years afterwards, he and others wrote to Fletcher, requesting him and his newly-wedded wife to visit the Methodists in Dublin. Fletcher replied:—
“Madeley, April 20, 1782.
“Dear Sir,—Last Saturday, I received your kind invitation to take a journey to Dublin, with my wife; and we join in sincere thanks for the kind and generous offer which accompanies that invitation.