27th July 1832.
My dear Mary—You told me in your letter that it would be more convenient for you to receive —— on the last of the month, so I made my arrangements accordingly. I now find it will suit me better to come to you on Wednesday, so that you may expect —— on the evening of that day by the coach you mention. I shall of course put up at the inn.
As to your style of lodging or living, —— is not such a fool as to let that have any weight with her; if you were in a cobbler’s stall she would be satisfied; and as to the dulness of the place, why, that must mainly depend on ourselves. Brompton is not so very gay, and the reason of my removing —— to Italy is that Mrs. B. was about sending her to reside with strangers at Lincoln; besides —— is acting entirely by her own free choice, and she gladly preferred Sandgate to Lincoln. At all events, come we shall; and if you, by barricading or otherwise, oppose our entrance, why I shall do to you, not as I would have others do unto me, but as I do unto others,—make an onslaught on your dwelling, carry your tenement by assault, and give the place up to plunder.
So on Wednesday evening (at 5, by your account) you must be prepared to quietly yield up possession or take the consequences. So as you shall deport yourself, you will find me your friend or foe,
Trelawny.
Mary’s guest stayed with her over a month. During this time she was saddened by the sudden death of her friendly acquaintance, Lord Dillon. She was anxious, too, about her father, whose equable spirits had failed him this year. No assistance seemed to avail much to ease his circumstances; he was not far from his eightieth year, and still his hopes were anchored in a yet-to-be-written novel.
“I feel myself able and willing to do everything, and to do it well,” so he wrote, “and nobody disposed to give me the requisite encouragement. If I can agree with these tyrants” (his publishers) “for £300, £400, or £500 for a novel, and to be subsisted by them while I write it, I probably shall not starve for a twelvemonth to come ... but this dancing attendance wears my spirits and destroys my tranquillity. ‘Hands have I, but I handle not; I have feet, but I walk not; neither is there any breath in my nostrils.’
“Meanwhile my life wears away, and ‘there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom in the grave whither I go.’ But, indeed, I am wrong in talking of that, for I write now, not for marble to be placed over my remains, but for bread to put into my mouth.”
Mary tried in the summer to tempt him down to Sandgate for a change. But the weather was very cold, and he declined.