"July 13. 1813.
"Your letter set me at ease; for I really thought (as I hear of
your susceptibility) that I had said--I know not what--but
something I should have been very sorry for, had it, or I, offended
you;--though I don't see how a man with a beautiful wife--_his own_
children,--quiet--fame--competency and friends, (I will vouch for a
thousand, which is more than I will for a unit in my own behalf,)
can be offended with any thing.
"Do you know, Moore, I am amazingly inclined--remember I say but
_inclined_--to be seriously enamoured with Lady A.F.--but this * *
has ruined all my prospects. However, you know her; is she
_clever_, or sensible, or good-tempered? either _would_ do--I
scratch out the _will_. I don't ask as to her beauty--that I see;
but my circumstances are mending, and were not my other prospects
blackening, I would take a wife, and that should be the woman, had
I a chance. I do not yet know her much, but better than I did.
"I want to get away, but find difficulty in compassing a passage in
a ship of war. They had better let me go; if I cannot, patriotism
is the word--'nay, an' they'll mouth, I'll rant as well as they.'
Now, what are you doing?--writing, we all hope, for our own sakes.
Remember you must edite my posthumous works, with a Life of the
Author, for which I will send you Confessions, dated, 'Lazaretto,'
Smyrna, Malta, or Palermo--one can die any where.
"There is to be a thing on Tuesday ycleped a national fête. The
Regent and * * * are to be there, and every body else, who has
shillings enough for what was once a guinea. Vauxhall is the
scene--there are six tickets issued for the modest women, and it is
supposed there will be three to spare. The passports for the lax
are beyond my arithmetic.
"P.S.--The Staël last night attacked me most furiously--said that I
had 'no right to make love--that I had used * * barbarously--that I
had no feeling, and was totally insensible to _la belle passion_,
and _had_ been all my life.' I am very glad to hear it, but did not
know it before. Let me hear from you anon."
* * * * *