“As my summer commences in July I may yet do something, but I have made up my mind to leave this,—its reputation as a fashionable watering-place is fast going, if not gone, and I am left musing like Marius amongst the ruins of past greatness, or ‘the last rose of’ anything else you can conceive of loneliness and misery.
“Whenever you do write, give me a hook and a head as to my prospects, for I can hope on with the assistance of the smallest gleam of light that ever glimmered from a taper.
“I sent you a paper a few days since with extracts from an article of mine. Did you get it?
“Since the appearance of the said article, and in consequence thereof, I have been written to by Blackwoods to become a contributor. This is at least flattering, and may be profitable.”
"PORTSTEWART, June 23, 1836.
“I saw some time since an advertisement in a literary journal for an editor for an English paper published in Paris, salary £200 per annum—he being expected to place in the stock purse of the concern £200, for which he is to receive six per cent. This I replied to, and have just got all the particulars, and I may have the appointment if I please. The capital, it being joint stock, is £8000. They have sent me a list of subscribers and account of profits—very flattering,—and the proprietor is the well-known [Reynolds] of the Library, Rue St Augustine—a most respectable and wealthy individual.
“My only reason for entertaining the proposition is my anxiety to emancipate myself from the trammels of this failing place, where I see my prospects daily retrograding, and every chance of my being left the only resident in a healthy population.
“My intention is, if I accept, to establish myself as a doctor in Paris,—there are 40,000 English residents,—and then by my literary labours pave the way to future advancement in my profession.”
"PORTSTEWART, June 29,1836.
“I have thought over the proposition mentioned in my last letter until my head is half crazy. There are many things in it which I could wish were otherwise than they are, but what is there to be found which gives unqualified satisfaction? My object is to go where there is a field for exertion—whether I may be able to cultivate it or not remains to be tried; with £200 and my own means we could at least get on tolerably well if practice did not follow: but I hope it would, and certainly I would endeavour to make it my chief object. I did not mention in my last that a dividend of the profits would be allowed for £200 as well as 6 per cent.... Since I wrote I received a line from Maxwell, who is in Paris, and to whom I wrote requesting that he would call on Mr Reynolds and mention my application, &c. He (Maxwell) speaks very favourably of Mr R, but by all means advises my going over to Paris immediately, and this, though attended with considerable expense, I have almost resolved on doing. If successful, the trip will be well worth the £30 it will cost; if otherwise, it is worth so much to escape a bad speculation—that is, taking it for granted that my foresight will detect its prospects of success or failure. I must only do the best I can, and see as far into the milestone as I am able.... I am resolved, if I go to Paris, to use my senses without bias or prejudice.... If I continue in my present mind I shall leave this on Saturday and be in Paris the following Friday.”