The literary world is to me terra incognita, far more deserving of the name (now Parry and Ross are returned) than any part of the polar region; but the first voyage amused me most and when I had seen red snow, and heard of men who wanted our sailors to fly, because they perceived they could swim, I really thought it time to lie down and die; but one cannot die when one will, so I have hung half on, half off, society this last half year; and begin 1821 by thanking dear Madame d'Arblay for her good-natured recollection of poor H. L. Piozzi.
ILL-HEALTH OF THE REV. A. D'ARBLAY. DR. BURNEY'S MSS.
(Madame d'Arblay to Mrs. Piozzi.) Bolton-street, Berkeley-square, Feb. 6, 1821. You would be repaid, dear madam, if I still, as I believe, know you, for the great kindness of your prompt answer, had you witnessed the satisfaction with which it was received ; even at a time of new and dreadful solicitude; for my son returned from Cambridge unwell, and in a few days after his arrival at home was seized with a feverish cold which threatened to fasten upon the whole system of his existence, not with immediate danger, but with a perspective to leave but small openings to any future view of health, strength, or longevity. I will not dwell upon this period, but briefly say, it seems passed over. He is now, I thank heaven, daily reviving, and from looking like-not a walking, but a creeping spectre, he is gaining force, spirit, and flesh visibly, and almost hour by hour; still, however, he requires the utmost attention, and the more from the extreme insouciance, from being always absorbed in some mental combinations, with which he utterly neglects himself. I am therefore wholly devoted to watching him.
I am quite vexed not to find the right October. However, I do not yet despair, for in the multitude of MSS. that have fallen to my mournfully surviving lot to select, or destroy, etc., chaos seems come again; and though I have worked at them during the last year so as to obtain a little light, it is scarcely Page 447
more than darkness visible. To all the vast mass left to my direction by my dear father, who burnt nothing, not even an invitation to dinner, are added not merely those that devolved to me by fatal necessity in 1818, but also all the papers possessed from her childhood to her decease of that sister you so well, dear madam, know to have been my heart's earliest darling. When on this pile are heaped the countless hoards which my own now long life has gathered together, of my personal property, such as it is, and the correspondence of my family and my friends, and innumerable incidental windfalls, the whole forms a body that might make a bonfire to illuminate me nearly from hence to Penzance. And such a bonfire might perhaps be not only the shortest, but the wisest way to dispose of such materials. This enormous accumulation has been chiefly owing to a long unsettled home, joined to a mind too deeply occupied by immediate affairs and feelings to have the intellect at liberty for retrospective investigations. . . .
A LAST GOSSIPING LETTER.
(From Mrs. Piozzi to Madame d'Arblay.) Sion Row, Clifton, near Bristol, March 15, 1821. I feel quite happy in being able to reply to dear Madame d'Arblay's good-natured inquiries, from this, the living world. Such we cannot term Penzance—not with propriety—much like Omai, who said to you, "No mutton there, missee, no fine coach, no clock upon the stairs," etc.; but en revanche here is no Land's End, no submarine mine of Botallock! What a wonderful thing is that extensive cavern ! stretching out half a mile forward under the roaring ocean, from whence 'tis protected only by a slight covering, a crust of rock, which, if by any accident exploded,
"Would let in light on Pluto's dire abodes,
Abhorr'd by men, and dreadful ev'n to Gods."
Plutus, however, not Pluto, is professed proprietor - 'tis an immense vacuity filled with the vapours of tin and copper, belonging to Lord Falmouth and a company of miners, where sixty human beings work night and day, and hear the waves over their heads , sometimes regularly beating the Cornish cliffs, sometimes tossing the terrified mariner upon the inhospitable shore; where shipwreck is, even in these civilized days, considered as a Godsend. Page 448
I am glad I saw it, and that I shall see it no more. You would not know poor Streatham Park. I have been forced to dismantle and forsake it; the expenses of the present time treble those of the moments you remember; and since giving up my Welsh estate, my income is greatly diminished. I fancy this will be my last residence in this world, meaning Clifton, not Sion Row, where I only live till my house in the Crescent is ready for me. A high situation is become necessary to my breath, and this air will agree with me better than Bath did.