Dear Sir
Yours sincerely,
J. PRIESTLEY.[8]
Resuming his correspondence with his numerous friends in England, he
said:
My chief resource is my daily occupation.
He also wrote Dr. Rush his thanks for having advised him to read Noah
Webster's _Pestilential Disorders_ which follow the appearance of
meteors and earthquakes, taking occasion also to excuse his opposition
to blood-letting,--
I believe that I owe my life to your judicious direction of it. I
shall never forget your so readily forgiving my suspicion, and my
requesting the concurrence of Dr. Wistar after the third bleeding.
It was his opinion as well as yours and Dr. Caldwell's, that my
disorder required several more; and the completeness of my cure,
and the speediness of my recovery, prove that you were right. In
the future I shall never be afraid of the lancet when so
judiciously directed.
To Rush he confided his doubts about his paper on Dreams. He cannot
account for them, hence he has offered merely an hypothesis, and
continues--
I frequently think with much pleasure and regret on the many happy
hours I spent in your company, and wish we were not at so great
distance. Such society would be the value of life to me. But I
must acquiesce in what a wise providence has appointed.
His friends continued sending him books. And how joyously he received
them. At times he would mention special works, as for example,--
Please to add Gate's Answer to Wall, and Wall's Reply; Sir John
Pringle's Discourses and Life by Dr. Kippis; Chandler's Life of
King David; Colin Milne's Botanical Dictionary, Botanic Dialogues,
and other books of Natural History; Kirwan's Analysis of Mineral
Waters; Crosby's History of English Baptists.