“Fourthly. With regard to _company_, will make choice of those persons who shall be most agreeable to herself, and will be very attentive to those of her relations with whom she may wish to be connected—especially her mother and sister.
“Fifthly. Being aware of the foolish trouble occasioned by fastidiousness in the _choice of food_, am determined never to express my partiality for any particular joint or dish, and never to make the smallest objection to anything which comes to table. Remember Duke Fortunatus, and the incessant squabbles occasioned by his fluctuating taste and pettish tempers.
“So lastly. As to the arrangement of _domestic concerns_, will interfere as little as need be, and will never meddle either in the choice or dismissal of the servants, and will be careful never to find with them unnecessary fault.
“These rules and regulations I will read over the first day of every month, so long as it shall please God to spare me, and will make them matter of most serious prayer.
“Should I see fit to make any additions to the above, will still never destroy _this_ identical paper, but keep it as exhibiting my views previous to marriage, and as a witness against me in future life, should I deliberately violate them.
“I write these rules in my college rooms on the 20th of May, 1811, being the day on which I complete the 27th year of my age, and being also the last of my remaining in Cambridge.
I CANNOT describe the feeling of regret which the receipt of your last letter occasioned, and I sit down, with depressed spirits, to dictate an answer. There is something exceedingly gloomy in the recollection that one of the dearest friends I have on earth, is about to depart to a place where there is no human probability of our ever meeting; and that he should depart also without my being permitted to look him in the face, to clasp his hand, and to bid him a parting adieu. I feel truly grieved at the circumstance, and the more so, as I had expected that you would have been detained on shore longer than the time fixed on for your departure, and consequently that you would have had some little spare time to pay us a farewell visit.
I feel comforted, however, with the hope of hearing from you occasionally, and do give you my promise that I will endeavour to write to you _every other month_, whether I hear from you or not; and my poor scrawls shall be duly forwarded to your good brother, as you have desired. I will inform you of our proceedings here as minutely as I can; and will take care to touch upon such of a more public nature as I conceive may possibly escape the attention of your other correspondents. But while I am thus writing, I cannot conceal from my Armstrong what has recently passed in my mind. I have long thought it to be a circumstance highly disgraceful to our Church that so few individuals have appeared who are willing to leave the comforts of life, and to endeavour to forward, by their own exertions, the grand and momentous work which the God of all grace is evidently carrying forward in all quarters of the globe; and I now begin to feel a desire (should the providence of God be pleased to open my path), to step forward in this great work. I have opened the matter to my Mary, and she tells me that she is willing to accompany me to any place where I should see it my duty to go. It has pleased God to give us a competency as to this world’s goods, and should any situation similar to the one you are going to, occur, we should really feel no hesitation in accepting it. What our future path may be is uncertain; but I should not wonder if my dear Armstrong hears of our following in the steps which he has marked out for us. There seems much to be done abroad, and few inclined to do it; should, therefore, God be pleased to accept of my poor intentions to be engaged in forwarding it, I shall rejoice in the circumstance, and gladly spend and be spent in so glorious an employment. I have said to my Armstrong what has been mentioned to no other individual whatever, my Mary excepted; I must therefore request he will not make the slightest allusion to it for the present.