Dear Madam,
After a long day’s toil, plague, and care, I sit down to write to you. Ask me not why I have delayed it so long! It was owing to hurry, indolence, and fifty other things; in short to anything—but forgetfulness of la plus aimable de son sexe. By the bye, you are indebted your best courtesy to me for this last compliment; as I pay it from my sincere conviction of its truth—a quality rather rare in compliments of these grinning, bowing, scraping times.
Well, I hope writing to you will ease a little my troubled soul. Sorely has it been bruised to-day! A ci-devant friend of mine, and an intimate acquaintance of yours, has given my feelings a wound that I perceive will gangrene dangerously ere it cure. He has wounded my pride!
R. B.
CXCVI.
TO MR. CUNNINGHAM.
[“The strain of invective,” says the judicious Currie, of this letter, “goes on some time longer in the style in which our bard was too apt to indulge, and of which the reader has already seen so much.”]
Ellisland, 8th August, 1790.
Forgive me, my once dear, and ever dear friend, my seeming negligence. You cannot sit down and fancy the busy life I lead.