1889 diary p19 faithful to him

[Gadget]

Agree it did look like hinds (see my reply #4) but is 'hindsight' a word the diarist would use about Chesterfield and can one describe Chesterfield of having hindsight about the married woman?  Not fully convinced 

(why did I type Chesterton    )

PS-  Deskman - can you complete your excerpt

with his previous one “prac..."

[CarolA3]

Before reading anyone else's suggestions, I see 'hints'.  If so, the crossing of the 't' is unusually strong, and I wonder if he did it like that to emphasise that it wasn't a 'd'.  This was before the days of liquid paper.

I agree with Gadget - please give us the rest of this bit

Carol

[Gadget]

I've been flicking through this version, if anyone wants to partake 

https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.b3314898;view=1up;seq=9

(think the 1751 letters are in this)

[Deskman]

Thanks everyone.

I wonder if the long ascender of the 'h' is a result of avoiding writing through the bold random line below 'later'.

If it is minds it seems to being used as a synonym of thoughts.

Here is the end of the diary sentence.
...one “practice the moral virtues, without these you can never be truly happy”  I suppose adultery is only immoral when practiced by people of no breeding.

which appears to be from
“By merit, I mean the moral virtues, knowledge, and manners; as to the moral virtues, I say nothing to you; they speak best for themselves, nor can I suspect that they want any recommendation with you; I will therefore only assure you, that without them you will be most unhappy.” Letter XL London, May 27, O. S. 1748.

[CarolA3]

Deskman, what did you make of Reply #10?

Carol

[Gadget]

We're really looking for a word meaning views, comments, reflections, observations, etc. I've been looking through various thesauri but can't find anything that has that form of letters except 'mind' and I don't think it is 

Gadget

added - trying to get inside his vocabulary/phraseology

[Deskman]

Hints is strong if we accept that the writer thought Chesterfield was hinting in his letters to his son.

Hints is weak as the 't' is so unlike his other 't's and it is a neat 'd' and the cross is weird when compared with all his other 't' crossings.

 

[Gadget]

It's more like a d than a t. If there is a t there, the letter before it might be an a. 

I feel that the horizintal stroke is either a partial underline or a mark that he's made in error.

Added - minds = reminds

[arthurk]

A bit off the wall, but could it be a Lincolnshire dialect word hinch - primarily a verb 'to be mean/miserly', but also a noun, 'meanness'?
(Source: Joseph Wright's English Dialect Dictionary)