"I am just got to the pass where Saint Peter, hearing that the royal defunct had opposed Catholic Emancipation, rises up, and, interrupting Satan's oration, declares he will change places with Cerberus sooner than let him into heaven, while he has the keys thereof.
"I must go and ride, though rather feverish and chilly. It is the ague season; but the agues do me rather good than harm. The feel after the fit is as if one had got rid of one's body for good and all.
"The gods go with you!—Address to Pisa.
"Ever yours.
"P.S. Since I came back I feel better, though I stayed out too late for this malaria season, under the thin crescent of a very young moon, and got off my horse to walk in an avenue with a Signora for an hour. I thought of you and
'When at eve thou rovest
By the star thou lovest.'
But it was not in a romantic mood, as I should have been once; and yet it was a new woman, (that is, new to me,) and, of course, expected to be made love to. But I merely made a few common-place speeches. I feel, as your poor friend Curran said, before his death, 'a mountain of lead upon my heart,' which I believe to be constitutional, and that nothing will remove it but the same remedy."
LETTER 461. TO MR. MOORE.
"October 6. 1821.