TO MR. RICHARDSON

Nov. 10, 1750

How much my heart thanks you for all the trouble you have taken with me, my most kind friend! my excellent instructor! I have no words that can express. I am ashamed to think how much time I have cost you; may but my mind be as much bettered as it has been delighted by your last letter, and then, my dear Mr. Richardson will not think his labour thrown away, even on me.

But yet, believe me, I am not a little distressed how to answer you. To urge fresh arguments against yours, will be to give you fresh trouble, and will, I fear, make you almost despair of doing any good to so obstinate, so tenacious a girl. Yet, my dear sir, you know I prepared you to expect to find me very slow in apprehending truths, which I had not been used to receive as such; and you gave me leave to own myself not convinced, even after you had taken the pains to explain and enforce your opinion. I would fain flatter myself, that this is not owing to obstinacy in my temper; that my mind is open to conviction, and wishes for truth, and not for victory. But how shall this appear to you?—Let it appear as it will, I dare not be insincere; and to give up the argument without being convinced, would be to defeat the good intentions of my kind correspondent; who can have no other motive to correspond with me at all, but the desire of my improvement, and my good.