The History of Sir Charles Grandison, Volume 4 (of 7) by Samuel Richardson
page 20 of 404 (04%)
page 20 of 404 (04%)
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Your lordship does me honour. I say this the rather, as I may, on this
solemn occasion, taking leave of such honourable friends, charge my future life with resolutions to behave worthy of the favour I have met with in this family. I passed from him to the general--Forgive, my lord, said I, the seeming formality of my behaviour in this parting scene: it is a very solemn one to me. You have expressed yourself of me, and to me, my lord, with more passion, (forgive me, I mean not to offend you,) than perhaps you will approve in yourself when I am far removed from Italy. For have you not a noble mind? And are you not a son of the Marquis della Porretta? Permit me to observe, that passion will make a man exalt himself, and degrade another; and the just medium will be then forgot. I am afraid I have been thought more lightly of, than I ought to be, either in justice, or for the honour of a person who is dear to every one present. My country was once mentioned with disdain: think not my vanity so much concerned in what I am going to say, as my honour: I am proud to be thought an Englishman: yet I think as highly of every worthy man of every nation under the sun, as I do of the worthy men of my own. I am not of a contemptible race in my own country. My father lives in it with the magnificence of a prince. He loves his son; yet I presume to add, that that son deems his good name his riches; his integrity his grandeur. Princes, though they are entitled by their rank to respect, are princes to him only as they act. A few words more, my lord. I have been of the hearing, not of the speaking side of the question, in the two last conferences I had the honour to hold with your lordship. Once you unkindly mentioned the word triumph. The word at the time went |
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