Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke (16 September 1678 – 12 December 1751), was an English politician and philosopher. He identified predominantly with the Tory faction, of which he was a prominent member for many years. He was born at Battersea, the son of Sir Henry St John (later 1st Viscount St John) and Lady Mary Rich, daughter of the 2nd Earl of Warwick. He was baptised on 10 October 1678, and educated at Eton College. He travelled abroad during 1698 and 1699 and acquired an exceptional knowledge of French, but also led an exceptionally dissipated and extravagant youth. Oliver Goldsmith reported that he had been seen to "run naked through the park in a state of intoxication". Swift, his intimate friend, said that he wanted to be thought the Alcibiades or Petronius of his age, and to mix licentious orgies with the highest political responsibilities. In 1700, he married Frances, daughter of Sir Henry Winchcombe of Bucklebury, Berkshire, but this made little difference to his lifestyle. He was returned to Parliament in 1701 for the family borough of Wootton Bassett in Wiltshire, as a Tory. His seat was Lydiard Park at Lydiard Tregoze, now in the Borough of Swindon. He attached himself to Robert Harley (afterwards Lord Oxford), then speaker, and distinguished himself by his eloquence in debate, eclipsing his schoolfellow, Robert Walpole, and gaining an extraordinary ascendancy over the House of Commons. In May, he had charge of the bill for securing the Protestant succession; he took part in the impeachment of the Whig lords for their conduct concerning the Partition treaties, and opposed the oath of loyalty against the "Old Pretender". In March 1702, he was chosen commissioner for taking the public accounts. After Queen Anne's accession, St John supported the bills in 1702 and 1704 against occasional conformity, and took a leading part in the disputes which arose between the two Houses. In 1704, St John took office with Harley as secretary at war, thus being brought into intimate relations with John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough, by whom he was treated with favour. In 1708, he left office with Harley on the failure of the latter's intrigue, and retired to the country till 1710, when he became a privy counsellor and secretary of state in Harley's new ministry, representing Berkshire in parliament. He supported the bill for requiring a real property qualification for a seat in parliament. In 1711 he founded the Brothers' Club, a society of Tory politicians and men of letters, and the same year witnessed the failure of the two expeditions to the West Indies and to Canada promoted by him. In 1712, he was the author of the bill taxing newspapers.[citation needed] The refusal of the Whigs to make peace with France in 1706, and again in 1709 when Louis XIV offered to yield every point for which the allies professed to be fighting, showed that the war was not being continued in the national interest, and the ministry was supported by the queen, Parliament and the people in wishing to terminate hostilities. Because of the diversity of aims among the allies, St John was induced to enter into separate and secret negotiations with France for the security of English interests. In May 1712, he ordered the Duke of Ormonde, who had succeeded Marlborough in command, to refrain from any further engagement. These instructions were communicated to the French, though not to the allies, Louis putting Dunkirk as security into possession of England, and the English troops deserted their allies almost on the battlefield. Subsequently St John received the congratulations of the French foreign minister, Torcy, on the French victory over Prince Eugene at Denain. In August 1712, St John, who had been created Viscount Bolingbroke went to France and signed an armistice between England and France for four months. Finally, the Treaty of Utrecht was signed in March 1713 by all the allies except the emperor. The first production of Addison's Cato was made by the Whigs the occasion of a great demonstration of indignation against the peace, and by Bolingbroke for presenting the actor Barton Booth with a purse of fifty guineas for "defending the cause of liberty against a perpetual dictator" (Marlborough). In June, Bolingbroke's commercial treaty with France, establishing free trade with that country, was rejected. Meanwhile, the friendship between Bolingbroke and Harley, the basis of the whole Tory administration, had been gradually dissolved. In March 1711, by Guiscard's attempt on his life, Harley got the wound which had been intended for St John, with all the credit. In May, Harley obtained the earldom of Oxford and was made lord treasurer, while in July, St John was greatly disappointed at receiving only his viscountcy instead of the earldom lately extinct in his family, and at being passed over for the Order of the Garter. In September 1713, Swift came to London, and made a final vain attem

I am twenty-two, soon to be twenty-three. I feel selfish for getting upset over my own woes when my cousin is twenty and battling Huntington’s Disease. Yet, there is an emptiness inside me that a looming fear is trying to tell me will never be filled. Many of my fiends are getting married, and some remarried. They are having babies, some already having their second or third. Yet when I ask what it is like to have their own child, this miracle of conception they created, the reply is always the same. Complaints and whining, things like “its nothing special.” If you did not wish to become pregnant, then why did you do the act? And how can you say such a thing The beautiful, amazing ability to conceive your own flesh and blood and carry it inside your body, feeling it move and kick. Then give birth, a pain so well worth the beauty you are given, to be allowed to raise and to cherish; this miracle of life. Perhaps you would not think such things if you were never able to do it in the first place, or were faced with a decision of a medical treatment to potentially save or prolong your life, or the ability to conceive your own child. I am tired. Tired of so many things. Tired of caring. Worrying, Hurting; so much pain, every day, every minute. Tired of wondering how old I will live to? Trying to remember to take all my pills. Was that pain I just had something serious? Is this hard lump in my vein another clot? But I’m on coumadin… I am tired of wanting to swallow a bottle of pills to make all my fears and worries and exhaustion, everything quiet; when the thing I want most in my life is to live! I want to run and breath and scream and laugh and smile without wanting to cry and scream at the top of my lungs, “Why can’t you tell its fake? Why can‘t anyone see though my smile?!” I’ve forgotten how to smile. I don’t want to be original, I don’t want to be Famous, I don’t want to be legendary…. I just want to have good health… be a wife to a husband that loves me, and “the world’s greatest mommy” to a child… But I will never have any of those. I will always be sick. No man would take me, even one who’s been around illness or cared for someone.. And no one would let me adopt with my medical conditions. When life cant get any worse, wait til your next Dr. appointment... </3