TO THE SAME.
Bursledon Lodge, Dec., 1810.
None of us have been out of the house since Monday, and there was a fresh fall of snow to-day. How I thank my young self for having cultivated such a taste for occupation that my old self never knows ennui. That I prefer society to loneliness, is quite another thing; and I am glad to see clearly that I do so, and no longer to be cheated by the false ideas a warm imagination picks up on the subject from books, or an impatient spirit from the momentary disgust inspired by unpleasant company.
... I think to be excellent as a husband a man must be excellent in many other points; and if women were more convinced of this than they are in general, there would be fewer marriages, and perhaps more happiness; or else, in hope of pleasing us, men would improve themselves. The greatest fault our sex can be accused of, is being too easily pleased by yours; who seem to take an unfair advantage of it in being as much over, as we often are under, nice; since the smallest fault of temper, manners, or even person, is thought a sufficient apology for your breaking loose; while poor we——; but this is too copious a subject, and my poor baby is crying. I hope Buonaparte may have a sick child, as I think the cry of an infant, whose pain one cannot know or assuage, would make him feel his want of power, though nothing else has done it.
TO MRS. LEADBEATER.
Jan. 2, 1811.