Boswell's Correspondence With the Honourable Andrew Erskine, And His Journal of a Tour to Corsica

excerpt from the book..Dear ERSKINE,--No ceremony, I beseech you. Give me your hand. How is myhonest Captain Andrew? How goes it with the elegant gentle Lady A----?the lovely sighing Lady J----? and how, O how does that gloriousluminary Lady B---- do? You see I retain my usual volatility. TheBoswells, you know, came over from Normandy, with William the Conqueror,and some of us possess the spirit of our ancestors the French. I do forone. A pleasant spirit it is. _Vive la Bagatelle_, is the maxim. A lightheart may bid defiance to fortune. And yet, Erskine, I must tell you,that I have been a little pensive of late, amorously pensive, anddisposed to read Shenstone's Pastoral on Absence, the tenderness andsimplicity of which I greatly admire. A man who is in love is like a manwho has got the tooth-ache, he feels most acute pain while nobody pitieshim. In that situation am I at present: but well do I know that I willnot be long so. So much for inconstancy. As this is my first epistle toyou,