renewed their acquaintance with me. In short, I had sufficiently seen
that the pleasures of the world are chiefly folly, and the business of
it mostly knavery, and both nothing better than vanity; the men of
pleasure tearing one another to pieces from the emulation of spending
money, and the men of business from envy in getting it. My happiness
consisted entirely in my wife, whom I loved with an inexpressible
fondness, which was perfectly returned; and my prospects were no other
than to provide for our growing family; for she was now big of her
second child: I therefore took an opportunity to ask her opinion of
entering into a retired life, which, after hearing my reasons and
perceiving my affection for it, she readily embraced. We soon put our
small fortune, now reduced under three thousand pounds, into money, with
part of which we purchased this little place, whither we retired soon
after her delivery, from a world full of bustle, noise, hatred, envy,
and ingratitude, to ease, quiet, and love. We have here lived almost
twenty years, with little other conversation than our own, most of the
neighbourhood taking us for very strange people; the squire of the
parish representing me as a madman, and the parson as a presbyterian,
because I will not hunt with the one nor drink with the other. "Sir,"
says Adams, "Fortune hath, I think, paid you all her debts in this sweet
retirement." Sir, replied the gentleman, I am thankful to the great
Author of all things for the blessings I here enjoy. I have the best of
wives, and three pretty children, for whom I have the true tenderness of
a parent. But no blessings are pure in this world: within three years of
my arrival here I lost my eldest son. (Here he sighed bitterly.) "Sir,"
says Adams, "we must submit to Providence, and consider death as common
to all." We must submit, indeed, answered the gentleman; and if he had
died I could have borne the loss with patience; but alas! sir, he was
stolen away from my door by some wicked travelling people whom they call
gipsies; nor could I ever, with the most diligent search, recover him.