…Worked in my garden part of this day. In perusing an abridgment of the Life of Madame de Maintenon in the Universal Magazine for March, I find the following, being the last advice given her by her mother, Madame d’Aubigné: to act in such a manner as fearing all things from men and hoping all from God.
In the afternoon my brother went home and my nephew along with him, his mother being at Framfield and I understand has been there ever since Thursday. I must say I think it somewhat odd for her to send there for the boy without sending either for me, my wife, self or Philip, or even her not coming over herself without sending word she would come one day next week if we would send word which day we would have her come.
My relations seem all to look upon me with a coldness that I cannot but take notice of, and for a reason to attribute their so doing to, I am at a loss to find. I can only say this, that if I know my own heart (which I may not and therefore err, for as the prophet Jeremiah observes: “She is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked”), I never think myself more happy than when I think myself a-serving any of my relations. Though undoubtedly by my so doing and their unkind retaliations, I am greatly injured and, I may say, impoverished. For to speak the truth, they seen to play at the game of outwit with me, or at least to take advantage of good nature or, if not that, of a simple and easy supineness or negligence. But their natural affection must, I think, so far bear away that all my ill-usage must proceed in part from their acting without thought or premeditated design, and from false and groundless chimeras formed in my own brain.