As I write to Lord B——, and explain myself so fully with respect to you, I have hardly any thing more to say at present than to refer you to his letter. Yours would perhaps require of me a return of civilities; but these I had rather make in actions than in words. To make you one of my family, to treat you as my brother, my friend; to make her you loved your sister; to put into your hands a paternal authority over my children; to invest you with my privileges, after having robbed you of yours; these are the compliments I have to make you. If, on your part, you justify my conduct, it will be sufficient praise. I have endeavoured to honour you with my esteem; it is yours to honour me by your merit. Let no other encomiums pass between us.
So far am I from being surprized at seeing you affected with a dream, that I see no very good reason for your reproaching yourself for being so. One dream more or less seems to be of no importance in such systematical gentlemen as yourself, whose very principles are visionary.
What I reproach you for, is less the effect of your dream, than the species of it; and that for a reason very different, perhaps, from what you may imagine. A certain tyrant once condemned a man to death for dreaming that he had stabbed him. Recollect the reason he gave for that sentence, and make the application. What! you are going to determine the fate of your friend, and you are thinking of your old amours! Had it not been for the conversation of the preceding evening, I should never forgive you that dream. Think in the daytime of what you are going to do at Rome, and you will dream less at night of what is doing at Vevey.
The little Frenchwoman is sick, which keeps Mrs. Wolmar so constantly employed that she has not time to write to you. Some body, however, will willingly take upon themselves that agreeable talk. Happy youth! to whose happiness every thing conspires! the rewards of virtue all await your merit. As to that of my good will, trouble no one with it; it is from you only I expect it.
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