And this, surely, I need not have told your ladyship, and the Countess
of C., who have read my papers, and seen my behaviour in the kind
visit you made to your dear brother, and had from _both_ but too much
reason to censure me, did not your generous and partial favour make
you overlook my greater failings, and pass under a kinder name many
of my lesser; for surely, my good ladies, you must both of you have
observed, in what you have read and seen, that I am naturally of a
saucy temper: and with all my appearance of meekness and humility, can
resent, and sting too, when I think myself provoked.
I have also discovered in myself, on many occasions (of some of which
I will by-and-by remind your ladyship), a malignancy of heart, that,
it is true, lasts but a little while--nor had it need--but for which I
have often called myself to account--to very little purpose hitherto.
And, indeed, Madam (now for a little extenuation, as you expect from
me), I have some difficulty, whether I ought to take such pains to
subdue myself in some instances, in the station to which I am raised,
that otherwise it would have become me to attempt to do: for it is
no easy task, for one in my circumstances, to distinguish between the
_ought_ and the _ought_ not; to be humble without meanness, and decent
without arrogance.
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