My dear Madam,—Taking it for granted that this will find you at Perten-hall, I follow you with an early line and a hasty one, to tell you how much we rejoice to have seen yourself and Mr. King; and how much regret you have left behind you. The wish that we expressed when we were together, Mrs. Unwin and I have more than once expressed since your departure, and have always felt it—that it had pleased Providence to appoint our habitations nearer to each other. This is a life of wishes, and they only are happy who have arrived where wishes cannot enter. We shall live now in hope of a second meeting and a longer interview; which, if it please God to continue to you and to Mr. King your present measure of health, you will be able, I trust, to contrive hereafter. You did not leave us without encouragement to expect it; and I know that you do not raise expectations but with a sincere design to fulfil them.
Nothing shall be wanting, on our part, to accomplish in due time a journey to Perten-hall. But I am a strange creature, who am less able than any man living to project anything out of the common course, with a reasonable prospect of performance. I have singularities, of which, I believe, at present you know nothing; and which would fill you with wonder, if you knew them. I will add, however, in justice to myself, that they would not lower me in your good opinion; though, perhaps, they might tempt you to question the soundness of my upper story. Almost twenty years have I been thus unhappily circumstanced; and the remedy is in the hand of God only. That I make you this partial communication on the subject, conscious, at the same time, that you are well worthy to be entrusted with the whole, is merely because the recital would be too long for a letter, and painful both to me and to you. But all this may vanish in a moment; and, if it please God, it shall. In the meantime, my dear madam, remember me in your prayers, and mention me at those times, as one whom it has pleased God to afflict with singular visitations.
How I regret, for poor Mrs. Unwin's sake, your distance! She has no friend suitable as you to her disposition and character, in all the neighbourhood. Mr. King, too, is just the friend and companion with whom I could be happy; but such grow not in this country. Pray tell him that I remember him with much esteem and regard; and, believe me, my dear madam, with the sincerest affection,
Yours entirely,
W. C.
TO JOHN JOHNSON, ESQ.
Weston, July 31, 1790.
You have by this time, I presume, answered Lady Hesketh's letter? if not, answer it without delay, and this injunction I give you, judging that it may not be entirely unnecessary, for, though I have seen you but once, and only for two or three days, I have found out that you are a scatter-brain.[548] I made the discovery perhaps the sooner, because in this you very much resemble myself, who, in the course of my life, through mere carelessness and inattention, lost many advantages; an insuperable shyness has also deprived me of many. And here again there is a resemblance between us. You will do well to guard against both, for of both, I believe, you have a considerable share as well as myself.
We long to see you again, and are only concerned at the short stay you propose to make with us. If time should seem to you as short at Weston, as it seems to us, your visit here will be gone "as a dream when one awaketh, or as a watch in the night."
It is a life of dreams, but the pleasantest one naturally wishes longest.
I shall find employment for you, having made already some part of the fair copy of the Odyssey a foul one. I am revising it for the last time, and spare nothing that I can mend. The Iliad is finished.