Letter to Thomas Gray (1766) [ ]
… will lose nothing by this: you know my volubility, when I a m full of new subjects; and I have at least many hours of conversation for you at m y return. One does not learn a whole nation in four or five months; but, for the time, few, I … still anxious to be loved, I don't mean by lovers, and a vehement enemy, but openly. As she can have no amusement but conversation, the least solitude and ennui are insupportable to her, and put her into the power of several worthless … has adapted words that express all the characters of love. With all this, he has not the least idea of cheerfulness in conversation; seldom speaks but on grave subjects, and not often on them; is a humourist, very supercilious, and wrapped …
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