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Must I have to tell you that not a day
passes without my employing some moments
as least & sometimes some hours in
thinking contemplating the pleasure I
should have in meeting you, and regretting
your being so dissatisfied with me.
This affects me at times as much as you
could desire & more than you would wish,
but at the same time it rather discourages
me from sitting down to write to you.
Absent and forgetfull I am to be sure to
a degree almost inconceivable, at least
I meet with none who can be compared
to me in that respect: but I believe
nobody finds me pcool in my affections.
Your speaking as if you doubted of my
desire of seeing you it is impossible I
should consider in any other light than
of a rebuke for my apparent slight
of you: but indeed it is treating me
with that degree of severity which tends
more to render me desperate than to
correct me.
Think of me more
favourably or rather be more indulgent
to me. You cannot be more surprized
at me than I am at myself.
I can conceive no private interest that could
set me at variance with you, no sacrifice
too great to make to you, but for the life
of me I cannot keep pace with that which
appears my duty to you. For this month
3 months past that I am travelling with
the Prince it is but seldom that I can
have opportunities for to sit down
to writing. Just now I have an hour
or two, and how do I employ them: in
reading over & over again your letters
and in giving
myself up to the train of ideas
they bring on. All I wish to say to
you recurs to my imagination, but
nothing of is written. When I manage
to write my hand keeps so badly pace
with my thoughts and the words which
present themselves so illy express
them I grow out of humour with
myself, and as it were wish for
as a something which shall call
unavoidably for my attention and
excuse to myself the putting off
my writing. There are 10 or 12 people
to whom I ought to write and to whom
I should be at no loss what to say,
but to find words for saying it even
when I can sit myself down for the
purpose is a task insupportable.
I write less & less and thereby become
less able to write. Tis time that now
& then a moment comes in which I can
write with facility enough but these
moments are but of short duration.
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Identifier: | JB/540/067/001 "JB/" can not be assigned to a declared number type with value 540.
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1784-06-18 |
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540 |
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067 |
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001 |
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Correspondence |
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