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DIARY • 1778 19
I now proceed to assume the daddy, and consequently
the privilege of giving counsel. Your kind and judicious
friends are certainly in the right in wishing you to make
your talents turn to something more solid than empty
praise. When you come to know the world half so well
as I do, and what yahoos mankind are, you will then be
convinced that a state of independence is the only basis
on which to rest your future ease and comfort. You
are now young, lively, gay. You please, and the world
smiles upon you—this is your time. Years and wrinkles
in their due season (perhaps attended with want of health
and spirits) will succeed. You will then be no longer
the same Fanny of 1778, feasted, caressed, admired, with
all the soothing circumstances of your present situation.
The Thrales, the Johnsons, the Sewards, Cholmondeleys,
etc., etc., who are now so high in fashion, and might be
such powerful protectors as almost to ensure success to
anything that is tolerable, may then themselves be moved
off the Stage. I will no longer dwell on so disagreeable a
change of the scene; let me only earnestly urge you to
act vigorously (what I really believe is in your power) a
distinguished part in the present one—'now while it is
yet day, and before the night cometh, when no man can
work.'
I must again and again repeat my former admonitions
regarding your posture in reading and writing; it is of
infinite consequence, especially to such lungs, and such a
frame as yours.
Lastly, if you do resolve to undertake anything of the
nature your friends recommend, keep it (if possible) an
impenetrable secret that you are even about such a work.
Let it be all your own till it is finished entirely in your own
way; it will be time enough then to consult such friends
as you think capable of judging and advising. If you
suffer any one to interfere till then, 'tis ten to one 'tis the
worse for it—it won't be all of a piece. In these cases
generally the more cooks the worse broth, and I have
more than once observed those pieces that have stole