1784.--I have got Dr. Johnson's picture here, and
expect Miss Thrale's with impatience. I do love them dearly, as ill
as they have used me, and always shall. Poor Johnson did not _mean_
to use me ill. He only grew upon indulgence till patience could
endure no further."
In a letter to Mr. S. Lysons from Milan, dated December 7th, 1784,
which proves that she was not frivolously employed, she says:
"My next letter shall talk of the libraries and botanical gardens,
and twenty other clever things here. I wish you a comfortable
Christmas, and a happy beginning of the year 1785. Do not neglect Dr.
Johnson: you will never see any other mortal so wise or so good. I
keep his picture in my chamber, and his works on my chimney."
"Forgiveness to the injured doth belong,
But they ne'er pardon who have done the wrong."
What he said of her can only be learned from her bitter enemies or
hollow friends, who have preserved nothing kindly or creditable.
Hawkins states that a letter from Johnson to himself contained these
words:--"Poor Thrale! I thought that either her virtue or her vice
(meaning her love of her children or her pride) would have saved her
from such a marriage. She is now become a subject for her enemies to
exult over, and for her friends, if she has any left, to forget or
pity."
Madame D'Arblay gives two accounts of the last interview she ever had
with Johnson,--on the 25th November, 1784. In the "Diary" she sets
down:
"I had seen Miss T.
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