However (by God's help), I will contend against this folly.
"I had rather a foolish letter the other day from ----. Some things in it nettled me, especially an unnecessarily earnest assurance that, in spite of all I had done in the writing line, Istill retained a place in her esteem. My answer took strong and high ground at once. I said I had been troubled by no doubts on the subject; that I neither did her nor myself the injustice to suppose there was anything in what I had written to incur. the just forfeiture of esteem. . . .