The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift/Volume 12/From Jonathan Swift to Esther Vanhomrigh - 11
TO VANESSA.
THE weather has been so constantly bad that I have wanted all the healthy advantages of the country, and it seems likely to continue so. It would have been infinitely better once a week to have met at Kendal, and so forth, where one might pass three or four hours in drinking coffee in the morning, or dining tête à tête, drinking coffee again till seven. God send you through your lawsuit, and your reference. And remember that riches are nine parts in ten of all that is good in life, and health is the tenth; drinking coffee comes long after, and yet it is the eleventh; but without the two former you cannot drink it right: and remember the china in the old house, and Rider street, and the colonel's journey to France, and the London wedding, and the sick lady at Kensington, and the indisposition at Windsor, and the strain by the box of books at London. Last year I writ you civilities, and you were angry. This year I will write you none, and you will be angry; yet my thoughts were still the same — Croyez que je serai toujours tout ce que vous désirez. Adieu.