Farmer, Master of Emanuel College, Cambridge.
'MADAM,--I hope you will believe that my delay in answering your letter
could proceed only from my unwillingness to destroy any hope that you
had formed. Hope is itself a species of happiness, and, perhaps, the
chief happiness which this world affords: but, like all other pleasures
immoderately enjoyed, the excesses of hope must be expiated by pain; and
expectations improperly indulged, must end in disappointment. If it
be asked, what is the improper expectation which it is dangerous to
indulge, experience will quickly answer, that it is such expectation as
is dictated not by reason, but by desire; expectation raised, not by
the common occurrences of life, but by the wants of the expectant; an
expectation that requires the common course of things to be changed, and
the general rules of action to be broken.
'When you made your request to me, you should have considered, Madam,
what you were asking. You ask me to solicit a great man, to whom I never
spoke, for a young person whom I had never seen, upon a supposition
which I had no means of knowing to be true.
Pages:
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201