The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift/Volume 12/From Henrietta Howard to Jonathan Swift - 2
FROM MRS. HOWARD.
I WRITE to you to please myself. I hear you are melancholy because you have a bad head, and deaf ears. These are two misfortunes I have laboured under these many years, and yet was never peevish with myself or the world. Have I more philosophy and resolution than you? Or am I so stupid that I do not feel the evil? Is this meant in a good natured view? or do I mean, that I please myself, when I insult over you? Answer these queries in writing, if poison or other methods do not enable you soon to appear in person. Though I make use of your own word poison, give me leave to tell you, it is nonsense; and I desire you will take more care, for the time to come, how you endeavour to impose upon my understanding, by making no use of your own.