The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift/Volume 12/From Henrietta Howard to Jonathan Swift - 3
FROM MRS. HOWARD.
I DID desire you to write me a love letter; but I never did desire you to talk of marrying me. I would rather you and I were dumb, as well as deaf, for ever, than that should happen. I would take your giddiness, your headach, or any other complaint you have, to resemble you in one circumstance of life. So that I insist upon your thinking yourself a very happy man, at least whenever you make a comparison between yourself and me. I likewise insist upon your taking no resolution to leave England till I see you; which must be here, for the most disagreeable reason in the world, and the most shocking; I dare not go to you. Believe no body, that talks to you of the queen, without you are sure the person likes both the queen and you. I have been a slave twenty years, without ever receiving a reason for any one thing I ever was obliged to do; and I have now a mind to take the pleasure, once in my life, of absolute power; which I expect you to give me, in obeying all my orders, without one question why I have given them.