you, makes me bear Hickman near me, but that the man is humble, and
knows and keeps his distance?

As to your question, Why your elder sister may not be first provided
for? I answer, Because she must have no man, but one who has a great
and clear estate; that's one thing. Another is, Because she has a
younger sister. Pray, my dear, be so good as to tell me, What man of
a great and clear estate would think of that eldest sister, while the
younger were single?

You are all too rich to be happy, child. For must not each of you, by
the constitutions of your family, marry to be still richer? People
who know in what their main excellence consists, are not to be blamed
(are they) for cultivating and improving what they think most
valuable?--Is true happiness any part of your family view?--So far
from it, that none of your family but yourself could be happy were
they not rich. So let them fret on, grumble and grudge, and
accumulate; and wondering what ails them that they have not happiness
when they have riches, think the cause is want of more; and so go on
heaping up, till Death, as greedy an accumulator as themselves,
gathers them into his garner.

Well then once more I say, do you, my dear, tell me what you know of
their avowed and general motives; and I will tell you more than you
will tell me of their failings! Your aunt Hervey, you say,* has told
you: Why must I ask you to let me know them, when you condescend to
ask my advice on the occasion?


* See Letter VIII.