The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift/Volume 13/From Alexander Pope to John Boyle - 2
THE pleasure you gave me, in acquainting me of the dean's better health, is one so truly great, as might content even your own humanity; and whatever my sincere opinion and respect of your lordship prompts me to wish from your hands for myself, your love for him makes me happy. Would to God my weight, added to yours, could turn his inclinations to this side, that I might live to enjoy him here through your means, and flatter myself it was partly through my own! But this, I fear, will never be the case; and I think it more probable his attraction will draw me on the other side, which, I protest, nothing less than a probability of dying at sea, considering the weak frame of my breast, would have hindered me from, two years past. In short, whenever I think of him, it is with the vexation of all impotent passions, that carry us out of ourselves only to spoil our quiet, and make us return to a resignation, which is the most melancholy of all virtues.