University of Virginia Library

“Most beloved of friends, and estimable of gentlemen,
but also most superstitutious of correspondents, and strangest
of Sancti Johannes! I have perused thy letter with abundant
laughter, and return unto thee my most grateful thanks
for dissipating a catarrh which has troubled me this fortnight!

“In this mournful vale of tears, O Henricus! not every
day do the immortals vouchsafe to the inhabitants of earth
the high prerogative and privilege of inextinguishable laughter.
This assurance will I write unto thee, O Henry! thy
prelection having rendered it incumbent. Even now a nasal

cachinnation, or inaudible expiration, vulgarly called snicker,
doth bear witness to the account given of your gorgons and
chimeras!

“In other words, my dear boy, to descend all at once from
my ceremonious style, your letter has made me laugh, sans
intermission, an hour by the dial! Per Hercle!—but my
swearing shall be confined to the French. Or, rather, I'll
not swear at all, or laugh. I will be grave as Erebus.

“To be serious, and stop my jesting, my dear Harry,
pray tell me what, in the name of all the gods at once, has
thrown you into this nervous state of mind? Is it too much
work, or the want of my cheerful society, or the sight of
that fine gentleman, his Depravity Lord Dunmore? I have
never before known you to give evidence of this strange susceptibility
to superstitious impressions, and though I make
a jest of your letter, and certainly did laugh at first, it has
been productive, by this time, of far more disquiet to me.

“You rightly supposed that I would consider your fancies
the product of disordered nerves, and I here declare,
once for all, that they seem to me the very climax of irrationality,
from first to last. What! you can not permit a
young girl of the most timid and shrinking disposition to
exhibit a little embarrassment at your arrival—you, her accepted
lover, and I wish you joy of it! You can't let her
blush a little, and leave the burden of the conversation to
the rest, and retire when she feels sick, or looks badly, and
fears you will not admire her in that plight, and therefore
hides herself; you can't permit those most natural and obvious
every-day, humdrum occurrences to take place, without
imagining a change in her feelings, a diminution of her love,
an interruption of her affection? Fie, Harry! 't is but a
poor lover that you make, and I predict that if you go on
with your fancies, 't will end in frightening her, and causing
the very thing which you dread. It is my intention, throughout
the two following pages, to dwell upon this subject of
the young lady's constraint, which you, yourself, acknowledge
no one observed but a certain Mr. St. John, gifted, for

the nonce, with nautical penetration to discern distant clouds,
and atmospheric phenomena, invisible to landsmen; it is my
intention to proceed at length to the refutation of your fancies
on this point, and then I shall handle more briefly the
phantom appearances.

“Having thus completely demolished your first point, absolutely
leveled it with the ground, plowed up the foundations,
and sowed salt in the furrows, I proceed briefly, as
my paper decreases, to speak of your phantoms. My dear
Harry, can you seriously believe in those idle stories?

“There was a time, certainly, when the best minds, ignorant
and surrounded by common things which they could not
understand, took refuge, from their blank thoughts, in an
irrational superstition. Socrates, it is said, believed in a familiar
spirit, Friar Bacon also, and even that strong-minded
old fellow, Doctor Johnson, to come nearer, gives credit to
the story of the Cock Lane Ghost. The others had strong
intellects, but they lived in an age of scientific darkness, and
we may pardon, while we deplore, the vagaries of their
imaginations. But that an educated gentleman of 1774,
should seriously give credence to the airy whisperings of
such a philosophy as you do! that you, a strong, healthy,
hearty, educated individual should believe in secret warnings,
and mysterious presentiments! really the thing grieves
me too much to permit any more laughter.

“I pray you to banish these fancies, which are simply the
result of disordered blood, of a nervous attack, of loss of
rest, probably, or excess in the use of tobacco, the supply of
which, being last year's crop, is, I think, particularly rank
and violent in its effect upon the nerves. Physical causes
very frequently produce mental effects, and if you see the
devil enter, with horns and tail, you have but to go to the
next physician's library to read an account of the same phenomenon
witnessed a century ago by another sick as you
are.

“What's certain is, that you are unhappy, and you rightly

think that nothing that concerns you is indifferent to me;
that nothing you write will find in me an unsympathizing
listener. We have been friends since childhood, and though
censorious individuals are pleased to consider my carriage
of person the proof of a shallow nature, still I persist in declaring
that I love my friends as well and heartily as the best
of them, and among these friends none takes a place before
yourself. I pray you throw aside these imaginary troubles,
and do not doubt that you have the entire affection of that
beautiful nature, than whom I know none purer or more
faithful.

“I am still languid from my attack, or I would come to
see you. Why should you not make a visit here? Leave
your plans for `Flower of Hundreds,' and come, for a day at
least, and recover your spirits. You'll work all the better
afterwards. I shall assuredly expect your answer to this in
person, and by word of mouth.

“I thank you for the things. They are all excellent, except
the hair powder, which that abandoned profligate, Lafonge,
has prepared with musk. My opinion of that fellow
is, that he is a wretch, and that the chief end and aim of his
whole existence is to disappoint, wound, and humiliate me.
A hundred times I have remonstrated with him, almost to
tears, on his conduct. I have dedicated whole mornings to
the most pathetic representations, which he has listened to
with sobs, standing behind his counter, and wringing his
hands, and promising, between his sniffs of contrition, that
in future he will be perfect. It is all in vain; his insidious
design is to mortify and humiliate me; he thinks even to
shorten my days by his unmanly persecutions. He is mistaken,
however. This puts the finish to our dealings. I
distinctly ordered this hair powder to be prepared in an
apartment which a suspicion even of musk had never entered,
and here I and my household, the very dogs and
cats, are turned into moschine denizens of Thibet, causing
me to blow my nose and groan every five minutes while I
write. Well, I have one recourse—Lafonge and myself

part for ever; I am tearful, but firm—we separate. I'm
none the less obliged to you, Harry my boy, for the trouble
you were put to.

“I've got to the end of my paper. Do not write, but
come here and breathe a purer atmosphere.

“For Heaven's sake don't yield again to your fancies,
which wound and distress me no less than they do yourself.
Forget them, and come and have a laugh with, or at, if you
choose,