For God's sake enter into my true motive for this wearing detail; it would torture me if it had any other effect than to impress on you my desire and hope to accord with your plan, and my incapability of making any final promise till the end of this month.
HATCHETT'S HOTEL, Piccadilly, Monday evening, [November 23, 1807.]
MY DEAR FRIENDS,--I arrived here in safety this morning between seven and eight, coach-stunned, and with a cold in my head; but I had dozed away the whole night with fewer disturbances than I had reason to expect, in that sort of _whether-you-will-or-no_ slumber brought upon me by the movements of the vehicle, which I attribute to the easiness of the mail. About one o'clock I moaned and started, and then took a wing of the fowl and the rum, and it operated as a preventive for the after time. If very, very affectionate thoughts, wishes, recollections, anticipations, can score instead of _grace_ before and after meat, mine was a very religious meal, for in this sense my inmost heart prayed _before_, _after_, and _during_. After breakfast, on attempting to clean and dress myself from crown to sole, I found myself quite unfit for _any_thing, and my legs were painful, or rather my feet, and nothing but an horizontal position would remove the feeling. So I got into bed, and did not get up again till Mr. Stuart called at my chamber, past three. I have seen no one else, and therefore must defer all intelligence concerning my lectures, etc., to a second letter, which you will receive in a few days, God willing, with the D'Espriella, etc. When I was leaving you, one of the little alleviations which I looked forward to, was that I could write with less embarrassment than I could utter in your presence the many feelings of grateful affection and most affectionate esteem toward you, that pressed upon my heart almost, as at times it seemed, with a bodily weight. But I suppose it is yet too short a time since I left you--you are scarcely out of my eyes yet, dear Mrs. M. and Charlotte! To-morrow I shall go about the portraits. I have not looked at the profile since, nor shall I till it is framed. An absence of four or five days will be a better test how _far_ it is a _likeness_. For a day or two, farewell, my dear friends! I bless you all three fervently, and shall, I trust, as long as I am