My dear Mrs: Dickenson -- What a strange Woman you are, very few like you, and woe be to
you if being singularly amiable and respectable be a crime -- You have honoured me
first and flattered me secondarily, all together I don't know how to repay your
kindness but by an assurance that though out of sight you have not been blotted from
my remembrance, far from it -- When I knew you a little, I liked you a little
when I had a better acquaintance, I thought as your husband --
                            Little Louisa -- and you tell me of a boy --
I sincerely gratulate you both on the charming circumstance of independence --
pray what think you of that mortal who is far from independence yet must
declare himself happy by comparison -- I shall say something of your nose
before I get to the bottom of my paper on the 4th Side -- Mr: Dickenson you are idle
enough to ask if I have seen a match for Lady De Vesci since I left you, how
could a man of your sense married to a Woman of so acute a nose as Mary Dickenson
ask such a Question. I tell you nay, nor you in the vast vortex of hoops and
petticoats in which you may move if you please -- but softly, you appear to
me to love confinements and one petty thing is enough for a reasonable Man --
Mrs Dickenson by this and by that I will not willingly offend you, but do, think
a moment what animal creatures we men are, and you will excuse me --
It is too ridiculous certainly to dwell upon, yet we who are candid must allow it.
     The sensible generosity of elderly Mr: Dickenson is to be praised and
highly, if that sort of conduct were more generally pursued, the World would
be better inhabited, and by a better race than the present, though I love things present.
I thank you 1000 times for the kind communications of your letter which
I have as yet read but once and am talking to You of, only by recollection --
     Yours was accompanied by a flight of letters from people whom