Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - Letter XII
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I cannot write composedly—I am every instant
sinking into reveries—my heart flutters, I know not.
why. Fool! It is time thou wert at rest.
Friendship and domestic happiness are continually
praised; yet how little is there of either in the world,
because it requires more cultivation of mind to keep
awake affection, even in. our own hearts, than the
common run of people suppose. Besides, few like to be
seen as they really are; and a degree of simplicity,
and of undisguised confidence, which, to uninterested
observers, would almost border on weakness, is the
charm, nay the essence of love or friendship, all the
bewitching graces of childhood again appearing. As
objects merely to exercise my taste, I therefore like to
see people together who have an affection for each
other; every turn of their features touches me, and
remains pictured on my imagination in indelible
characters. The zest of novelty is, however, necessary
to rouse the languid sympathies which have been
hackneyed in the world; as is the factitious behaviour
falsely termed good-breeding, to amuse those, who,
defective in taste, continually rely for pleasure on their
animal spirits, which not being maintained by the
imagination, are unavoidably sooner exhausted than
the sentiments of the heart. Friendship is in general
sincere at the commencement, and lasts whilst there is
anything to support it; but as a mixture of novelty
and vanity is the usual prop, no wonder if it fall with
the slender stay. The fop in the play paid a greater
compliment than he was aware of when he said to
a person, whom he meant to flatter, "I like you almost
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