詩集與書信 第 63 章

Necessity stood in the way of my attending the festival; humanity has arranged that the festival should attend me. You write, then, that you have requited my want of devotion with provisions from the sea. A worthy kind of punishment indeed, which sets me in conflict with the craving of the palate! I would greatly desire to present myself to you, if you did not so punish the absent. Would that the penalty of your censure upon the contumacious might never cease. I fear nothing more than that you bid me fear nothing hereafter. Grant indulgence to whoever shall ask it; pardon the one toward whom you would be sparing. For the rest, since I have experienced the quality of your severity, it is clear that I desire your displeasure more than your pardon.

For the rest, may our God grant, by your prayers, that I—who was absent from this present year's festival by duties rather than by delights—you may in the future time present with your prayers, though with no like affection; and that, when I shall have returned, you may believe I absented myself with a like severity. Eight marsh-fowl, and two pairs of soles, which you may soften with your teeth—somewhat stirred, yet not wholly rendering evil for evil—I have dispatched.