- The
King's Affairs, It Is True, Would Suffer
Nothing By My Absence; But, Sir, What Would
The World Say Of Me, If, After A Whole Year Of
Inactivity And Idleness, I Flew, On The First Appearance
Of Danger, And Forsook A Prince, By
Whom I Have Been So Highly Favoured?
- Instead
of the character I have always been ambitious
of attaining, should I not be branded with
everlasting infamy!
- Put not therefore, I beseech
you, to so severe a test that love and duty,
to which you cannot have a greater claim than
I a readiness to pay? - Did you command my
life, it is yours: - I owe it to you, and with it
all that can render it agreeable; but, sir, my
honour, my reputation, must survive when I am
no more; it was the first, and will be the last
bent of my desires. No perils can come in any
degree of competition with those of being deprived
of that, nor any indulgencies of fortune
compensate for the loss of it: - pardon then
this enforced disobedience, and believe it is the
only thing in which I could be guilty of it. -
I very much lament my sister's absence, as I
find by yours she went without your permission:
time and reflection will doubtless bring her to a
more just sense of what she, as well as myself,
ought to have of your goodness to us, and make
her return full of sincere contrition for having
offended you. I should implore your favourable
opinion of her actions in the mean time,
were not all the interest I have in you too little
to apologize for my own behaviour.
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