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Excerpt from The Letters of Mrs. Elizabeth Montagu, Vol. 2: With Some of the Letters of Her Correspondents Learned, and thirst of the rich, has no cure, no, nor no abatement. Hope is a vagrant that prefers begging from place to place, and gathering morsels, to living at home on fair means with content; it is a vagabond without an honest calling or an abiding place; it cheats us of the present good, and makes beggars of those for tune has made princes; what have we, who are here but for to-day, to do with the eternal promises for to morrow? Get thee gone from rrte, thou restless guest, that cannot live with content upon possession! Leave me content for my companion, and I will not ask thee to come as a flatterer; take fear along with thee, as fanciful a creature as thyself, who destroys what is real with a more painful deceit than thou buildest what is but imaginary; each are equally enemies to content. I have more compassion for those who fear to be misera ble, than for such as are impatient to be happy; exam ples of misery are to be met with, but of absolute hap piness none such as have overcome those intruders of quiet, hope, and fear, are the nearest to happiness; they have reached content. I have spent some anxious hours sincel parted with your Grace in fear, some times of not seeing you again for a twelvemonth, which gave me a heavy depression of heart; at other times, in a nearer hope of seeing you, I was in an impertinent elevation of spirits. Now, had expectation stood still and quiet, swift-footed time had brought the hour of our meeting. Oh that the soul could stay at home and mind its present business, and not go forth in fearful or fanciful prophecies concerning unknown matters! The folly of anticipation! Does not time fly fast enough, that our wishes must outrun it? Is it not powerfulenough that our hopes and fear must expect more than it performs? Is the progress of what consumes us too slow? Is the parent of age, the nurse of worlds, the teacher of all science, unable to do enough for us, and incapable to bring about our affairs! Shall that which lent leisure to the creation of light, and the reforming of chaos, not afford hours for the clearing a doubt, or settling an uncertainty? Shall this midwife to the works of infinity, and the birth of the universe, not bring forth a little accident? I find time to be trusted; it brings about all I would have it do, but that it goes an evener pace than desire; for the future 1 will rely upon it. Fear may add weight to my heart, or hope may give wings to my wishes, but they cannot impose delay or haste on Time; he goes on the same pace when Caesar wants his assistance to conquer the world, or a child to ripen him a cherry; therefore how vain a thing is hope, and how wise a man is my fisherman! Those things determined 1 have nothing more to say, but that, whe-a ther tyrannised by fear, or deluded by hope, in every disposition of mind, every situation of circumstances, and in every point of time, I am, with the greatest gratitude, and affection, and love, your Grace's much obliged, and faithful, E. Robinson. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
