Your's, ever, my dear wife,
W.H.
XV.
Persano, Wednesday,
[Jan. 18th, 1792.]
It was not your white and silver, alone, that made you look like an angel, at the Academy. Suppose you had put it on nine parts out of ten of the ladies in company, would any one have appeared angelic?
I will allow, however, that a beautiful woman, feeling herself well dressed, will have a sort of confidence, which will add greatly to the lustre of her eye: but take my word, that, for some years to come, the more simply you dress, the more conspicuous will be your beauty; which, according to my idea, is the most perfect I have yet met with, take it all in all.
It is long-faced day with the King. We went far; the weather was bad; and, after all, met with little or no game: I did not fire off my gun.
Yesterday, when we brought home all we killed, it filled the house, completely; and, to-day, they are obliged to white-wash the walls, to take away the blood. There were more than four hundred; boars, deer, stags, and all.
To-morrow, we are to have another slaughter; and not a word of reason or common sense do I meet with, the whole day, till I retire to my volumes of the old Gentleman's Magazine, which just keeps my mind from starving.
Except to-day, on a mountain, I have never felt the least appetite; there, I eat the wings of a cold chicken with pleasure.