BC_1740_EMONTAGU_AD_2

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<Q A 1740? TC AD EMONTAGU>
<X ELIZABETH MONTAGU>
 [}ELIZABETH ROBINSON TO ANNE DONNELLAN. 1740? AUGUST 21. BULSTRODE. MO 809}]
<P1>
Bullstrode Aug y=e= 21=s= [\OS\]
[\ADDED? 1740\]
Dear M=rs= Donnellan
   There wanted no addition to your letter to make me intirely happy but an account of your own health, if I was to tell you the part I take in it you would perhaps think I said a great deal more then the period of our friendship will allow of, so to avoid the imputation of flattery & too prompt professions of Esteem I will suppress a thousand tender things I think about you, but surely where one has found in a few months in one as many valuable & agreable qualities as one might many years have sought for in others it may be permitted [\to one DELETED\] to have soon for what is amiable & valuable such a share of love & esteem as may be deservedly accounted friendship. If by the pleasure of travelling to Spa in your letter I can guess what it would be to go there in your company nothing I think could make me more happy, I like the manner of living
<P2>
As is quite new & the Place so Romantick. I cannot say I am fond of such early rising, or that I delight in Cards, but custom would in a weeks time make the first easy, & I suppose for the other it is not worse than Bath, I have heard my Brother say there are charming Cascades & Woods, there we might converse with the [\Naides INTO Naiads BY WHOM?\] & Dryads free from noise impertinence & folly, & leave the dull farce the empty show, of Powder Pocket glass & Beau for Silence & Meditation, I wish the Waters agreed with my Brother & I could easily prevail upon him to go & gallant us, I must tell you I have the happiness of hearing he is much better in health than he has been of late years, as I have heard you say you know the happiness of having a good Brother [\I am sure/] you will easily guess the pleasure this gives me. Your praises of my friend & friendship pleased me, extreamly, I admir[{e{] [\TEAR\] my friend above all people, & friendship above all things, it has all the tenderness of love without its weakness's, & its extasies without its jealousies, it is founded in Reason & strengthen'd by time, a friend is the better for wearing
<P3>
And I think the greatest happiness this World can bestow is to have a friend & be a friend, I believe no one knows better all the charms of friendship than you, else I should not venture to say so much in praise of it, having often heard it laugh'd at as a thing rather in name than in nature, I own I generally shunn'd the company where I knew the Social tyes were made a jest of, but many make self interest the only cement of Society. I am sorry to think so meanly of my Species, I believe such things are cheifly said by those who have not the tender feelings of humanity, & therefore would as soon take a blind mans word that there is no such thing as the light that he does not see, as [\the opinion of/] these Savages of Society when they say there is no Virtue which they do not feel. I hope you received a letter from the Dutchess with a prodigious long Epistle from me sometime ago. Our friend Penny is under great anxiety for the change her Sister is going [\to make/] I do not wonder at her fears, I believe both experience & observation have taught her
<P4>
The State she is going into is in the general less happy than that she has left, however Pip has a good prospect for they say the Gentleman has good sense good nature & great Sobriety, these are very good things, & indeed what a stock of virtues & qualifications ought to be laid in to last out the journey of life, where so much too lies thro the Rugged ways of adversity, all will hardly serve to lengthen love & patience to the End.
   The last sparks of life & vanity are at length extinguishd in Lady Kaye, I believe she has left all her Riches to Lady North, but whom she has bequath'd her complexion I dont know, she had likewise some pretty features enough to dispose of, as eye brows lips & teeth, I suppose she has order'd to be buried in the last wish of an Antiquated beauty cherry colour, the fatal Sisters spun the line of her life so equal with the thread of her vanity that they were shorn in the same instant, had she confin'd her vivacity to mere follies her life had been a very good jest; It is very happy for her Daughter [\IN DIFFERENT HAND that she will fall under other management. I am dear Madam
    &c. &c
   E. Robinson.\]