“You once talked of passing this winter in Italy; but I hope your plans will be entirely guided by the state of your health and feelings. Your society would undoubtedly be a very great resource to me, but I am so well aware of my own present unfitness for society, that I would not have you risk the chance of an uncomfortable moment on my account. I often read Lord Byron’s Euthanasia: it is the only case, probably, where my feelings perfectly coincide with what his were.”
At times the feeling of despair was so intense that he actually seemed apprehensive of suicide. It was probably under the influence of such a fear that he wrote in his journal that he had too strong a faith in the optimism of the system of the universe ever to accelerate his dissolution.
“I have been and am taking a care of my health which I fear it is not worth; but which, hoping it may please Providence to preserve me for wise purposes, I think it my duty.”
On another occasion he wrote to Lady Davy:—
“I am glad to hear of your perfect re-establishment, and with health and the society of London, which you are so well fitted to ornament and enjoy, your ‘viva la felicità’ is much more secure than any hope belonging to me.”
Subsequently he wrote:—
“Should your feelings or inclination lead you to the land of the sun, I need not say what real pleasure it would give me to enjoy your society; but do not make any sacrifice on my account.”
A couple of days afterwards he wrote:—
“I hope I shall have the delight of seeing you at Baden Baden. If not, I shall come to England.... Pray let my physicians know what an obedient patient I am.... God bless you, my dear Jane!”
Towards the end of September, and at Baden, the solitary man wrote:—