[From Letters of Bishop Hildesley]

Letter LXX

Bishopscourt , Thursday, Jan. 28, 1768.

Our two last letters, I believe, crossed each other in the road the same day, viz., Saturday. 23.

Yours, now before me, seems to be a proof of what I have before intimated would be the case; that, so soon as you should recover from your surprize. and begin to recollect, your feeling sensibly would proportionately be increased for a while. Let me then desire you not to attempt a degree of heroism, beyond what is consistent with the infirmities of human nature, under a notion, of pious submission to the dispositions of Providence.

Your loss must afflict yon, put what face you will upon it ; Natumm expellas furca, usque recurret (131). You say you could fill your whole paper on the subject; and pray, why should you not ? It would do you far more good than to stifle it. Write, and talk of her at every turn and opportunity; it will relieve you : Experto crede. What you talk of endeavouring to do, I know not, unless it be what I trust you have already accomplished by a fiat voluntas! For the rest, the cure or the alleviation must be had from Time.

The shortness and uncertainty of all worldly enjoyments, amongst others, that of our dearest friends, when it comes to be our lot to be deprived of them, strike very home; and, let us reason or think as religiously as we please upon it, one may as well bid the sufferer not exclaim or groan, when he undergoes the amputation of a limb, as forbid grief at the loss of one so near as a husband or a wife.

She has missed the grieving for the loss of you; which, if I mistake not, had you gone first, would have given her far longer pain than what she felt in her last illness. This, if it was severe, was short; and now, she has released from that and all other troubles. Will not this afford you some comfortable reflections? The whole, truth is that we grieve for ourselves, not for the friend deceased. When we say, as is so common and usual, "my poor wife!" or "my poor husband!" we may more properly say, "my poor self!" We are sorry for ourselves, and for the loss we have sustained; and I do not know that such sorrow, duly moderated, is any more a sin. than to rejoice at what we gain. So thought the wise Solomon: and a greater than Solomon, we know, wept at the loss of his friend. Thus, sir, on this melancholy subject , my pen runs on to communicate; and if of no service to you.—and indeed don't lay much stress upon it, for any material effect,— yet, I persuade myself you will take all in good part, that comes from your well-meaning and sympathetic friend,

MARK SODOR & MANN.