I have often told you, my dear friend, that you had a spice of caprice in your composition, and you have as often disavowed it; even perhaps while your opinions were, at the moment, irrefragably proving it. Could anything estrange me from a friend such as you?—No! To-morrow I shall have the honour of waiting on you.
Farewell, thou first of friends, and most accomplished of women; even with all thy little caprices!
R. B.
CCLXXXIX.
TO MRS. RIDDEL.
[The offended lady was soothed by this submissive letter, and the bard was re-established in her good graces.]
Madam,
I return your common-place book. I have perused it with much pleasure, and would have continued my criticisms, but as it seems the critic has forfeited your esteem, his strictures must lose their value.
If it is true that “offences come only from the heart,” before you I am guiltless. To admire, esteem, and prize you as the most accomplished of women, and the first of friends—if these are crimes, I am the most offending thing alive.