I am, Dear Sir, Most truly your's & Mrs. G.'s, E. G.
Mr. Southouse whom I saw yesterday tells me, that I may desire the favor of your company, with Mrs. G.'s, next Thursday evening. He thinks that Friday and Saturday mornings will suffice for our immediate business. As to the place, I should be glad to know whether you choose my lodgings or wish me to look out for any other place.--Should any thing (which I do not foresee) happen to defer your coming up, I shall take care to give you timely intelligence.--It is very difficult to say any thing positive as to money till we have finished writings, &c. However as to the C. affair, Mr. Scott will answer for it.
Mrs. G. distresses me every way.--I am truly concerned that it should be necessary for her to come up, at a time when I can easily conceive the state of her mind & spirits; but I am still more embarassed from her generous obstinacy. The sum of her Jointure is left in blank. Should she still object to the encrease of her Jointure, I must leave it as an engagement not of law, but of honor, of gratitude and of inclination.
You may depend on another letter by Sunday, till when
I waited till to-night before I took Lodgings, as I was not sure of your intentions. To-morrow morning I shall look out for one. I apprehend Suffolk Street or that neighbourhood will be at once private and convenient.--You will of course come in by Hyde Park Corner, and my servant shall attend at my lodgings at Mr. Taylor's, Grocer's, opposite to the Duke of Cumberland's, Pall Mall, to conduct you to your lodgings, where I shall immediately attend you. I should think that you had better not arrive till towards five o'clock, when Sir R. will be gone to dinner.
[Sidenote: HIS FATHER'S FAILING EYESIGHT.]
I was a good deal alarmed with your letter of yesterday, and as much pleased with that of to-day, which dispelled my uneasiness: before you receive this I flatter myself that my father will be quite recovered. I have seen Wentzel,[123] who very obligingly took my guinea to tell me that he could tell me nothing about my father's case without seeing him. On that head he was very cool and very fair; a decay of the optic nerve, he said, was sometimes tho' seldom to be removed; as to the opinions of our surgeons he treated them with infinite contempt.