“My dear George,—I have received the long expected packet. . . . The account Fanny gives of her health is far from pleasing me, though I imagine that her complaints arise from a new cause that you can easily guess. . . . She has received several of our letters, and read in the papers an account of Palmer, which made her very uneasy lest your name should be mentioned, which would have been an effectual bar to your settling in Lisbon. . . . Skeys has received congratulatory letters from most of his friends and relations in Ireland, and he now regrets that he did not marry sooner. All his mighty fears had no foundation, so that if he had had courage to have braved the world’s dread laugh, and ventured to have acted for himself, he might have spared Fanny many griefs, the scars of which will never be obliterated. Nay more, if she had gone a year or two ago, her health might have been perfectly restored, which I do not now think will ever be the case. Before true passion, I am convinced, everything but a sense of duty moves; true love is warmest when the object is absent. How Hugh could let Fanny languish in England, while he was throwing money away at Lisbon, is to me inexplicable, if he had a passion that did not require the fuel of seeing the object. I much fear he loves her not for the qualities that render her dear to my heart. Her tenderness and delicacy are not even conceived by a man who would be satisfied with the fondness of one of the general run of women. . . .—Your affectionate friend,
