MADAM: The post has been more favorable to you than I intended it should,
for, upon my word, I answered your former letter the post after I had
received it. However you have got a loss, as we say sometimes in Ireland.
My friends from time to time require bills of health from me in these
suspicious times, when the plague is busy in some parts of Europe. All I
can say, in answer to their kind inquiries, is, that I have not the
distemper properly called the plague; but that I have all the plague of
old age and of a shattered carcass. These waters have done me what little
good I expected from them; though by no means what I could have wished,
for I wished them to be ‘les eaux de Jouvence’.
I had a letter, the other day, from our two boys; Charles’ was very
finely written, and Philip’s very prettily: they are perfectly well, and
say that they want nothing. What grown-up people will or can say as much?
I am, with the truest esteem, Madam, your most faithful servant.
CHESTERFIELD.