This correspondence is dated from October 1750, to January 1751.
[2] 'I shall still find in her (Miss Mulso is writing to and of Miss Carter) that amiable condescension, and unreserved benevolence, which endears her conversation, and enhances the value of her understanding; which teaches her how to improve her companions without appearing to instruct them, to correct without seeming to reprove, and even to reprove without offending.' Miss Mulso to Miss Carter, September 11, 1749.
'It is impossible not to be better, as well as happier, for an intimate acquaintance with Miss Carter; take her for all in all, I think, I may venture to pronounce her the first of women!' Miss Mulso to Mr. Richardson, July 24, 1752.
[3] 'I think I read the 'Rambler' with great attention, yet I cannot entirely acquit him of the charge of severity in his satires on mankind. I believe him a worthy humane man; but I think I see a little of the asperity of disappointment in his writings.' Miss Mulso to Miss Carter, October 1752.
'I am very unwilling to believe those that fright us with shocking pictures of human nature, and could almost quarrel with my very great favourite, 'The Rambler,' for his too-general censures on mankind; and for speaking of envy and malice as universal passions.' Ibid.
[4] 'I thank God, (Canterbury, August 29, 1757,) my best soul has now the upper hand, by the assistance of medicine and cool weather, much more than of reason; and perhaps by the hope of two or three days of fancied good, in the presence of a fancied essential (Mr. Chapone) to my happiness, who has promised to come down and see me some time before the middle of next month.'——'I shall now tell you something of myself, who live here (Salisbury, John, the second brother to her, being then its Prebendary) uncorrupted by grandeur, &c. &c. &c. who could prefer a little attorney (Chapone) even to my Lord Feversham; had he offered to me, instead of the fair young lady he has so happily won.' Miss Mulso to Miss Carter.
[5] 'Nothing can ever make me amends for that luxurious ease and security, in the kindness of all around me, which enables me to wrangle, abuse, and dispute, till I am black in the face,' &c. &c. Mrs. Chapone to Mr. Burrows, 1773.
[6] 'It has always been one of my prayers, that I might never be the wife of an overgrown scholar.' Miss Mulso to Miss Carter, 1754.
[7] Letters on the Improvement of the Mind, edit. 1801, pages 93, 94.
[8] 'I have been very near death; and, at the time he threatened me most, it was the most earnest wish of my heart to meet and embrace him. But, I bless God, I am restored not only to life, but to a sense of the great mercy indulged me in the grant of a longer tern of trial.'—'You are so obligingly solicitous about my circumstances, that I would willingly inform you of the state of them, if I had any certainty about them. But my dear Mr. Chapone's affairs were left in great confusion and perplexity by his sudden death; which happened just at the time of year in which he should have settled his accounts, and made out his bills. As these are very considerable, his estate must suffer a great loss from this circumstance. At present, things are in a very melancholy state, and my own prospects such as would probably have appeared very dreadful to me at any other time.' Mrs. Chapone to Miss Carter, December 6, 1761.