The spirit has great advantages over the body, though the body supplies many little repeated pleasures, which solace the soul in its sorrowful moods. You have often laughed at my mournful reflections, but I have banished them all. It is useless to harbor them in the latter days of one's life, and one must be satisfied with the life of every day as it comes. Near hopes, whatever you, may say against them, are worth as much as those far off, they are more certain. This is excellent moralizing. Take good care of your health, it is to that everything should tend.
Now, M. de Charleval is dead, and I am so much affected that I am trying to console myself by thinking of the share you will take in my affliction. Up to the time of his death, I saw him every day. His spirit possessed all the charms of youth, and his heart all the goodness and tenderness so desirable among true friends. We often spoke of you and of all the old friends of our time. His life and the one I am leading now, had much in common, indeed, a similar loss is like dying one's self.
Tell me the news about yourself. I am as much interested in your life in London as if you were here, and old friends possess charms which are not so well appreciated as when they are separated.
M. de Clerambault gave me pleasure by telling me that I am in your thoughts constantly. I am worthy of it on account of the affection I maintain for you. We shall certainly deserve the encomiums of posterity by the duration of our lives, and by that of your friendship. I believe I shall live as long as you, although I am sometimes weary of always doing the same things, and I envy the Swiss who casts himself into the river for that reason. My friends often reprehend me for such a sentiment, and assure me that life is worth living as long as one lives in peace and tranquillity with a healthy mind. However, the forces of the body lead to other thoughts, and those forces are preferred to strength of mind, but everything is useless when a change is impossible. It is equally as worth while to drive away sad reflections as to indulge in useless ones.
Madame Sandwich has given me a thousand pleasures in making me so happy as to please her. I did not dream, in my declining years to be agreeable to a woman of her age. She has more spirit than all the women of France, and more true merit. She is on the point of leaving us, which is regretted by every one who knows her, by myself, particularly. Had you been here we should have prepared a banquet worthy of old times. Love me always.