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Private letters of Edward Gibbon (1753-1794)
Private letters of Edward Gibbon - 1753-1794 Author:Edward Gibbon Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: 176a] DECLINES TO ENTER PARLIAMENT. K. To his Father. Lausanne, September the IOth, 1763. Dear Sir, This morning I received your letter, and accor... more »ding to your desire prepared myself immediately to answer it. I hardly thought it possible, any letter of yours could have given me so much uneasiness. I am very sensible how many obligations I have to yon, and that in this affair yon continue to act with your usual goodness to me. If there is any fault it is partly my own and partly that of unhappy circumstances. My expences have been too great for our fortune. I was afraid of it at the time; and tho' I cannot yet see that relative to my situation of travelling and being at Paris I have launched into any extravagancy, the consequences are equally disagreable. Bnt what is past cannot be recalled. With regard, Dear Sir, to the proposal mentioned in your letter; if your own ease or happiness had depended upon it, I should not have hesitated an instant, but as the advantages resulting from it relate only to me you will give me leave to canvass it freely. I need not say any thing of the great inconvenience of mortgages nor how much they eat up an estate piece meal. We feel it but too sensibly: Sir T. R.'s is particularly disagreable, ince he has it in his power to distress us whenever he pleases by calling for his money. I own the thought of increasing it hurts me very much. The advantages for me would be, your being able to bring me into Parliament, increasing my annuity and enabling me to continue my travels. Give me leave to say, Dear Sir, that the first has very little weight with me. I find my ambition dimmish every day, and my preference of a quiet studious life to hurry and business grow upon me. Besides I should imagine the thing almost impossible in the middl...« less