"Albaro, May 6.1828.
My dear Lady ----,
I send you the letter which I had forgotten, and the book[1], which I
ought to have remembered. It contains (the book, I mean,) some
melancholy truths; though I believe that it is too triste a work ever
to have been popular. The first time I ever read it (not the edition
I send you,--for I got it since,) was at the desire of Madame de
Staël, who was supposed by the good-natured world to be the
heroine;--which she was not, however, and was furious at the
supposition. This occurred in Switzerland, in the summer of 1816, and
the last season in which I ever saw that celebrated person.
[Footnote 1: Adolphe, by M. Benjamin Constant.]
"I have a request to make to my friend Alfred (since he has not
disdained the title), viz. that he would condescend to add a _cap_ to
the gentleman in the jacket,--it would complete his costume,--and
smooth his brow, which is somewhat too inveterate a likeness of the
original, God help me!"
"I did well to avoid the water-party,--_why_, is a mystery, which is
not less to be wondered at than all my other mysteries. Tell Milor
that I am deep in his MS., and will do him justice by a diligent
perusal."
"The letter which I enclose I was prevented from sending by my
despair of its doing any good. I was perfectly sincere when I wrote
it, and am so still. But it is difficult for me to withstand the
thousand provocations on that subject, which both friends and foes
have for seven years been throwing in the way of a man whose feelings
were once quick, and whose temper was never patient. But 'returning
were as tedious as go o'er.' I feel this as much as ever Macbeth did;
and it is a dreary sensation, which at least avenges the real or
imaginary wrongs of one of the two unfortunate persons whom it
concerns."
"But I am going to be gloomy;--so 'to bed, to bed.' Good night,--or
rather morning. One of the reasons why I wish to avoid society is,
that I can never sleep after it, and the pleasanter it has been the
less I rest."
"Ever most truly," &c. &c.
I shall now produce the enclosure contained in the above; and there
are few, I should think, of my readers who will not agree with me in
pronouncing, that if the author of the following letter had not
_right_ on his side, he had at least most of those good feelings
which are found in general to accompany it.