The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift/Volume 13/From Elizabeth Germain to Jonathan Swift - 11
FROM LADY BETTY GERMAIN.
I SHOULD have answered yours sooner, but that I every day expected another from you, with your orders to speak to the duke; which I should with great pleasure have obeyed, as it was to serve a friend of yours. Mrs. Floyd is now, thank God, in as good health as I have seen her these many years, though she has still her winter cough hanging upon her; but that, I fear, I must never expect she should be quite free from at this time of day. All my trouble with her now is, to make her drink wine enough, according to the doctor's order, which is not above three or four glasses, such as are commonly filled at sober houses; and that she makes so great a rout with, and makes so many faces, that there is nobody that did not know her perfectly well, but would extremely suspect she drinks drams in private.
I am sorry to find our tastes so different in the same person; and as every body has a natural partiality to their own opinion, so it is surprising to me to find lady Suffolk dwindled in yours, who rises infinitely in mine, the more and the longer I know her. But you say, "you will say no more of courts, for fear of growing angry;" and indeed, I think you are so already, since you level all without knowing them, and seem to think, that no one who belongs to a court can act right. I am sure this cannot be really and truly your sense, because it is unjust: and if it is, I shall suspect there is something of your old maxim in it (which I ever admired and found true) that you must have offended them, because you do not forgive. I have been about a fortnight from Knowle, and shall next Thursday go there again for about three weeks, where I shall be ready and willing to receive your commands, who am most faithfully and sincerely yours.