"Well, my dear Henry, I must now conclude this letter, already too long
to be interesting. I hope to see you about ten days after you receive
this; and if you could bring me a Cachemire shawl, it would give me great
pleasure to see your taste in its choice. God bless you, my dear son.

"Your very affectionate

"Frances Pelham."

"P.S. I hope you go to church sometimes: I am sorry to see the young men
of the present day so irreligious. Perhaps you could get my old friend,
Madame De--, to choose the Cachemire--take care of your health."

This letter, which I read carefully twice over, threw me into a most
serious meditation. My first feeling was regret at leaving Paris; my
second, was a certain exultation at the new prospects so unexpectedly
opened to me. The great aim of a philosopher is, to reconcile every
disadvantage by some counterbalance of good--where he cannot create this,
he should imagine it. I began, therefore, to consider less what I should
lose than what I should gain, by quitting Paris. In the first place, I
was tolerably tired of its amusements: no business is half so fatiguing
as pleasure. I longed for a change: behold, a change was at hand! Then,
to say truth, I was heartily glad of a pretence of escaping from a
numerous cohort of folles amours, with Madame D'Anville at the head; and
the very circumstance which men who play the German flute and fall in
love, would have considered the most vexatious, I regarded as the most
consolatory.

There was yet another reason which reconciled me more than any other to
my departure. I had, in my residence at Paris, among half wits and whole