Two days after, I visited the spot of my captivity, but it had entirely changed its appearance. A storm of equinoctial violence had broken off its pyramidal height, and the drift of sand and gravel, and fragments of rocks, had given a new face to the whole recess. I sent for the seaman to ascertain the very spot: this he did; but told me that a similar change took place commonly twice a year - and added, very calmly, that two days later I could not have been saved from the waves.
GENERAL D'ARBLAY'S RETURN TO ENGLAND.
(Madame d'Arblay to a Friend.) Bath, November 9, 1817. Can I still hope, my dear friend, for that patient partiality which will await my tardy answer ere it judges my irksome silence? Your letter Of Sept. 27th I found upon my table when I returned, the 5th of October, from Ilfracombe. I returned, with Alexander, to meet General d'A. from Paris. You will be sorry, I am very sure, and probably greatly surprised, to hear that he came in a state to occupy every faculty of my mind and thoughts— altered—thin—weak—depressed—full of pain—and disappointed in every expectation of every sort that had urged his excursion!
I thank God the fever that confined him to his bed for three days is over, and he yesterday went down stairs and his repose now is the most serene and reviving. The fever, Mr. Hay assured me, was merely symptomatic ; not of inflammation
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or any species of danger, but the effect of his sufferings. Alas! that is heavy and severe enough, but still, where fever comes, 'tis of the sort the least cruel, because no ways alarming.
Nov. 15-I never go out, nor admit any one within - nor shall I, till a more favourable turn will let me listen to his earnest exhortations that I should do both. Mr. Hay gives me strong hopes that that will soon arrive, and then I shall not vex him by persevering in this seclusion: you know and can judge how little this part of my course costs me, for to quit the side of those we prize when they are in pain, would be a thousand times greater sacrifice than any other privation.
THE PRINCESS CHARLOTTE'S DEATH.
You are very right as to Lady Murray, not only, of course, I am honoured by her desire of intercourse, but it can never be as a new acquaintance I can see the daughter of Lord and Lady Mulgrave. I have been frequently in the company of the former, who was a man of the gayest wit in society I almost ever knew. He spread mirth around him by his sprightly ideas and sallies, and his own laugh was as hearty and frank as that he excited in others ; and his accomplished and attaching wife was one of the sweetest creatures in the world. Alas ! how often this late tragedy in the unfortunate royal family has called her to my remembrance!(316) She, however, left the living consolation of a lovely babe to her disconsolate survivor ;-the poor Prince Leopold loses in one blow mother and child.
The royal visit here has been a scene of emotion:—first of joy and pleasure, next of grief and disappointment. The queen I thought looked well till this sudden and unexpected blow; after which, for the mournful day she remained, she admitted no one to her presence, but most graciously sent me a message to console me. She wrote instantly, with her own hand, to Prince Leopold-that prince who must seem to have had a vision of celestial happiness, so perfect it was, so exalted, and so transitory. The poor Princess Charlotte's passion for him had absorbed her, yet was so well placed as only to form her to excellence, and it had so completely won his return, that like herself he coveted