_[June 20, 1795] 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 Lisbon, 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
MARY.