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This letter is part of the correspondence calendar of the complete correspondence of Thomas Gray. The calendar contains detailed bibliographic records for all known original, copied, or published letters written by or to the poet as well as the full-text, where available. Each record is accompanied by digitised images of the manuscript, where available, or digitised images of the first printed edition.
I am not so ignorant of Pain myself as to be able to hear of anothers Sufferings, without any Sensibility to them, especially when
they are those of One, I ought more particularly to feel for; tho' indeed the goodness of my own Constitution, is in some Sense a
Misfortune to me, for as the health of everybody I love seems much more precarious than my own, it is but a melancholy prospect to
consider myself as one, that may possibly in some years be left in the World, destitute of the advice or good Wishes of those few
friends, that usd to care for me, and without a likelihood or even a desire of gaining any new ones. this letter will, I hope, find you
perfectly recoverd, & your own painful experience will, for the future, teach you not to give so much in to a sedentary Life, that
has [I] fear been the Cause of your illness. Give my duty to your Mind, & tell her she has taken more care of herself, than of my
tother poor friend, your Body, & bid her hereafter remember how nearly her Welfare is connected with his: tell her too, that she may pride herself in her great family, & despise him for being a poor Mortal, as
much as she pleases, but that he is her wedded husband, & if he suffers, she must smart for it. my inferences you will say, don't
follow very naturally, nor have any great relation to what has been said, but they are as follows.
Messrs Selwin and Montague have been here these 3 weeks, are by this time pretty heartily tired of Rheims, & return in about a week. The day they set out for England, we are to do the same for Burgundy, in our way only as it is said to Provence, but People better informd conceive that Dijon will be the end of our expedition. for me, I make everything that does not depend on me, so indifferent to me, that if it be to go to the Cape of good Hope I care not: if you are well enough, you will let me know a little of the history of West who does not remember there is such a Place as Champagne in the world.