73 
Nothing would, I think, be too much to serve the 
friend I really loved: yet I would avoid the extreme 
which some very good-natured people run into, 
who are fetchers and carriers to all the world. Your 
partial opinion of me shows your own good heart. 
Indeed, Batty, I must confess I am capable of very 
strong attachments, and sometimes perhaps of too 
strong dislikes; one often takes prejudices which 
time either confirms or removes. When I first was 
with you, I was prejudiced in your favour: I soon 
thought I saw you had feeling (the foundation of 
all that’s good) ; and soon, that I saw real merit 
through that amiable modesty and diffidence which 
are so great an ornament to the brightest abilities. 
I determined to be more acquainted with you. I 
saw your friendship was better worth my cultivating 
than that of the more forward or splendid; and as 
I have known you better, I have bound you to my 
heart as an inestimable jewel. Think not this is all 
pure disinterestedness : the first prejudices we form 
concerning persons and things border on weakness ; 
we are therefore peculiarly happy to have them 
confirmed ; for the human mind is confessedly more 
tenacious of its weaknesses than of anything else 
that belongs to it. I offer you, my Batty, a warm, an 
honest heart: if I had more ability to be of use to 
you, I should be more happy. I shall trouble you 
as often as you can be of use to me next winter. 
Come then, my friend, let friendship give a relish 
to our studies and heighten the pleasure of our re- 
lations: let us assist each other in avoiding the 
snares of the profligate, and the still more dange- 
