Saturday.
This is the fifth dreary day I have been imprisoned by the wind, with
every outward object to disgust the senses, and unable to banish the
remembrances that sadden my heart.
How am I altered by disappointment!—When going to ——, ten years ago, the
elasticity of my mind was sufficient to ward off weariness, and the
imagination still could dip her brush in the rainbow of fancy, and
sketch futurity in smiling colours. Now I am going towards the North in
search of sunbeams! Will any ever warm this desolated heart? All nature
seems to frown, or rather mourn with me. Every thing is cold—cold as my
expectations! Before I left the shore, tormented, as I now am, by these
North-east _chillers_, I could not help exclaiming—Give me, gracious
Heaven! at least, genial weather, if I am never to meet the genial
affection that still warms this agitated bosom—compelling life to linger
there.
I am now going on shore with the captain, though the weather be rough,
to seek for milk, &c. at a little village, and to take a walk, after
which I hope to sleep—for, confined here, surrounded by disagreeable
smells, I have lost the little appetite I had; and I lie awake, till
thinking almost drives me to the brink of madness—only to the brink, for
I never forget, even in the feverish slumbers I sometimes fall into, the
misery I am labouring to blunt the sense of, by every exertion in my
power.
Poor —— still continues sick, and —— grows weary when the weather will
not allow her to remain on deck.
I hope this will be the last letter I shall write from England to
you—are you not tired of this lingering adieu?
Yours truly
* * * *