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Hon:d Sir
Your command, dated on Wednesday
came to head last night. This morning I wasted
on Mrs Sarney to give her your ultimatum.
I am sorry to have to tell you she did not
choose to engage upon the terms. When I
mentioned them to her, she herself ascribed
the shortness of the time you were willing
to engage for to an intention she attributed
to you of letting the whole in the manner
you propose: saying that it was what people
expected you would do: in which she was
joined by her friend Mrs Townsend: and
all I could say was that that as besides the expence at her time of
life the trouble of moving and shifting the
scene was irksome, she could not justify
to herself to run the risk of being obliged to
it in so short a time. At the same time I
placed your & my mother's wish to have her for a friend & aneighbour
and your willingness to make the abatement you mentioned on her account
in the light I thought you wished it should
appear to her: a mark of respect of which
she seemed duly sensible, and made many
polite acknowledgements. In answer to her apprehension
all that I could say was that
I rather thought, in my own opinion, you would
not adopt that plan; as indeed I am disposed
to think; not imagining that you will be able to get for
the mere ground and the few materials anything
approaching to the £90 a year you make,
(including the new apartment but) exclusive of
the warehouse which is and probably will remain
unoccupied. I
When at Mrs Sarney's, I found myself in
pays de connaissance. As Mrs Sarney herself
was not yet stirring when I called, I was introduced
to her Landlady Mrs Townsend ; whom, as
I said in my last, I had seen her with before.
This Mrs Townsend turns out to be own
Sister to Mrs Hills of Colchester. Hills
is absolutely turned Hermit. He shuts himself
up (I understand from that and other quarters)
among his well-bound books and Cockleshells,
and exercises the most "strenua inertia". His
house must certainly be a magnificent one, the
old gentleman, I understand from Mrs Townsend
gave him Carte Blanche with regard to the
expence; and it is to be absolutely his own, with
the estate around it. Yet I have all along
that this Son was not at all in favour with
the father, but that the younger who is in the
business was the favourite. Every body supposes
the young man will marry, when the
house is finished, but nobody pretends to
the person. All this while the Old Gentleman
himself, dresses plain, sees nobody, goes nowhere,
but confines himself wholly to the business.
I am very sorry I should have disappointed
you, Sir, by not answering
your question respecting the Bookseller. Your
commands on that head were by no means "
tended" to or forgotten. But the manner in
which you mentioned the matter at first gave
me not the least reason imaginable to think
you were in any hurry about it, or had any
reason to be so. You talked of making purchases
in the book way, and it was in view to that
that you seemed to have put the question;
and I could not suppose that you would make
any purchases of that sort for the young folks
till they were with you themselves to choose.
The Payne's have been both out of Town
when I have called, and the foreman who
was left could only tell me the name of the
Bookseller you enquired after. He was present
when you spoke about it to young Payne:
The name he says if Cressonier. The address
he could neither recollect nor lit upon any method
of finding out. But this cannot be who
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Identifier: | JB/537/367/001 "JB/" can not be assigned to a declared number type with value 537.
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1775-??-?? |
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537 |
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367 |
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001 |
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Correspondence |
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Jeremy Bentham |
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