MihaElla > Recent Status Updates

lord caversham.
Oh, damn sympathy.  There is a great deal too much of that sort of thing going on nowadays.

lord goring.
I quite agree with you, father.  If there was less sympathy in the world there would be less trouble in the world.

lord caversham. [Going towards the smoking-room.] That is a paradox, sir. I hate paradoxes.

lord goring.
But it is after seven, father, and my doctor says I must not have any serious conversation after seven.  It makes me talk in my sleep.

lord caversham.
Talk in your sleep, sir?  What does that matter?  You are not married.

lord goring.
No, father, I am not married.”

[…] You should have told your wife the whole thing. Secrets from other people’s wives are a necessary luxury in modern life. So, at least, I am always told at the club by people who are bald enough to know better. But no man should have a secret from his own wife. She invariably finds it out. Women have a wonderful instinct about things. They can discover everything except the obvious.

lady markby.
We might drive in the Park at five.  Everything looks so fresh in the Park now!

mrs. cheveley.
Except the people!

lady markby.
Perhaps the people are a little jaded.  I have often observed that the Season as it goes on produces a kind of softening of the brain.  However, I think anything is better than high intellectual pressure.  That is the most unbecoming thing there is.

I never read so damned a letter in my life: a little would make me send it over to you.—I must send you a pattern, the first place I cast my eyes on, I will not pick and choose…

I was mortified enough to-day, not knowing where in the world to dine, the town is so empty.


o, good graces! Sir Swift (aka Presto), are you really serious? you are in a terrible fear of a peaceful and silent town 😝
here, sorry to say, we fully oppose each other!

—Did I tell you of the Archbishop of Dublin's last letter? He had been saying, in several of his former, that he would shortly write to me something about myself; and it looked as if he intended something for me: at last out it comes, and consists of two parts. First, he advises me to strike in for some preferment now I have friends; and secondly,

Pray be very particular; but the twenty pounds I lend you is not to be included: so make no blunder. I won't wrong you, nor you shan't wrong me; that is the short. O Lord, how stout Presto is of late! But he loves MD more than his life a thousand times, for all his stoutness; tell them that; and that I'll swear it, as hope saved, ten millions of times, etc. etc.

—So Dr. Elwood says there are a world of pretty things in my works. A pox on his praises! an enemy here would say more. The Duke of Buckingham would say as much, though he and I are terribly fallen out; and the great men are perpetually inflaming me against him: they bring me all he says of me, and, I believe, make it worse out of roguery.

Did I ever tell you that Lord Treasurer hears ill with the left ear, just as I do? He always turns the right, and his servants whisper him at that only. I dare not tell him that I am so too, for fear he should think I counterfeited, to make my court.

Me too 😂

Does Stella never eat any? what, no apricots at Donnybrook! nothing but claret and ombre! I envy people maunching and maunching peaches and grapes, and I not daring to eat a bit.
My head is pretty well, only a sudden turn any time makes me giddy for a moment, and sometimes it feels very stuffed; but if it grows no worse, I can bear it very well.

People have so left the town that I am at a loss for a dinner.It is a long time since I have been at London upon a Sunday;and the Ministers are all at Windsor. It cost me eighteenpence in coach-hire before I could find a place to dine in. I went to Frankland's,and he was abroad, and the drab his wife looked out at window, and bowed to me without inviting me up:so I dined with Mr. Coote, my Lord Mountrath's brother

Are there not many literal faults in my letters? I never read them over, and I fancy there are. What do you do then? do you guess my meaning, or are you acquainted with my manner of mistaking?
I lost my handkerchief in the Mall to-night with Lord Radnor; but I made him walk with me to find it, and find it I did not.

The grapes are sad things; but the peaches are pretty good, and there are some figs. I sometimes venture to eat one, but always repent it.

oh no, grapes should be cheerful stuff 🙃🥂

Do you know that I have ventured all my credit with these great Ministers, to clear some misunderstandings betwixt them; and if there be no breach, I ought to have the merit of it. 'Tis a plaguy ticklish piece of work, and a man hazards losing both sides. It is a pity the world does not know my virtue.

The Secretary and I have been walking three or four hours to-day. The Duchess of Shrewsbury asked him, was not that Dr.—Dr.—and she could not say my name in English, but said Dr. Presto, which is Italian for Swift. Whimsical enough, as Billy Swift says.

😂

What, you used to love hot weather then? I could never endure it: I detest and abominate it. I would not live in a hot country, to be king of it.

😝yet I doubt it

Remember, if I am used ill and ungratefully, as I have formerly been, 'tis what I am prepared for, and shall not wonder at it. Yet I am now envied, and thought in high favour, and have every day numbers of considerable men teasing me to solicit for them. And the Ministry all use me perfectly well; and all that know them say they love me. Yet I can count upon nothing, nor will, but upon MD's love and kindness.

The end of our Club is, to advance conversation and friendship, and to reward deserving persons with our interest and recommendation. We take in none but men of wit or men of interest; and if we go on as we begin, no other Club in this town will be worth talking of.

🥳Sounds delicious, worth getting a yearly membership

I never impute any illness or health I have to good or ill weather, but to want of exercise, or ill air, or something I have eaten, or hard study, or sitting up; and so I fence against those as well as I can: but who a deuce can help the weather?

🤭Reasonable logic

I was so hot this morning with my walk, that I resolve to do so no more during this violent burning weather. It is comical that now we happen to have such heat to ripen the fruit there has been the greatest blast that was ever known, and almost all the fruit is despaired of.

👻always and persistently giving me the impression we are in the same present, time-wise

When I came here to-night, I had a mighty mind to go swim after I was cool, for my lodging is just by the river; and I went down with only my nightgown and slippers on at eleven, but came up again; however, one of these nights I will venture.

🤭He is such a weird funny fellow

Letter 24.
Chelsea, May 24, 1711
Morning.Once in my life the number of my letters and of the day of the month is the same;that's lucky, boys;that's a sign that things will meet,and that we shall make a figure together.What, will you still have the impudence to say London, England,because I say Dublin, Ireland?Is there no difference between London and Dublin, saucyboxes?I have sealed up my letter,and am going to town

Do not I often say the same thing two or three times in the same letter, sirrah?
Great wits, they say, have but short memories; that's good vile conversation.

😂Of course!

But I am kept here by a most capricious fate, which I would break through, if I could do it with decency or honour.—To return without some mark of distinction would look extremely little; and I would likewise gladly be somewhat richer than I am. I will say no more, but beg you to be easy till Fortune take her course, and to believe that MD's felicity is the great end I aim at in all my pursuits.

This man has grown by persecutions, turnings out, and stabbing. What waiting, and crowding, and bowing will be at his levee! yet, if human nature be capable of so much constancy, I should believe he will be the same man still, bating the necessary forms of grandeur he must keep up.

Mr. Secretary told me the Duke of Buckingham had been talking to him much about me, and desired my acquaintance. I answered it could not be, for he had not made sufficient advances. Then the Duke of Shrewsbury said he thought that Duke was not used to make advances. I said I could not help that; for I always expected advances in proportion to men's quality, and more from a duke than any other man.

Everybody tells me I look better already; for, faith, I looked sadly, that is certain. My breakfast is milk porridge: I do not love it; faith, I hate it, but it is cheap and wholesome; and I hate to be obliged to either of those qualities for anything.

😂No way!

Is it not plaguy insipid to tell you every day where I dine? yet now I have got into the way of it, I cannot forbear it neither.

😝 Pray don’t stop, it serves well, my breakpoint is now long past

I cannot sleep in the beginnings of the nights, the heat or something hinders me, and I am drowsy in the mornings.

We are good company 🤭