Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 13.djvu/70

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58
LETTERS TO AND FROM

often: for the evenings and mornings are very cold, and the middle of the day violently hot. Northeast winds continually, and such want of rain, that the ground is as hard as iron. I am the most temperate creature in my diet you ever knew; yet, with all my care, I cannot be well. I believe, if I am never guilty of a greater fault, I shall meet with very little resentment, either publick or private. They are the faults in the world soonest forgot, and the seldomest truly resented. Let that be as it will, since health is undoubtedly the most valuable thing in life, I shall do all I can to obtain it. This makes me consent to a thing in the world I am most averse to, that is, going to the Spa about a month or six weeks hence. I wish it was good for your complaints, that we might be there together. Really, if you think it will be of any use to you, and that you can order your affairs so as to make it possible, depend upon it we shall make it our study, (and a very agreeable one too,) to make you as easy and happy as it is in the power of people (not of a very troublesome disposition) to contrive. Your complaint and mine are not very different, as I imagine. Mine is a sort of dizziness, which generally goes off by the headach. Some learned people give it a name I do not know how to spell, a vertico, or vertigo. Pray understand that I, really and truly, do not only say, but mean, that I wish you could either meet us at the Spa, or at London to go on with us; and in this I am sure I shall never change my mind. If it can do you any good, I feel myself enough your friend to resent it extremely if you miss this opportunity. This you would believe, if you knew what obligations I have to you. I am generally poor in spirit, or quarrelling

with