Chapter 81

"November 30. 1813.

"Since I last wrote to you, much has occurred, good, bad, and indifferent,--not to make me forget you, but to prevent me from reminding you of one who, nevertheless, has often thought of you, and to whom _your_ thoughts, in many a measure, have frequently been a consolation. We were once very near neighbours this autumn; and a good and bad neighbourhood it has proved to me. Suffice it to say, that your French quotation was confoundedly to the purpose,--though very _unexpectedly_ pertinent, as you may imagine by what I _said_ before, and my silence since. However, 'Richard's himself again,' and except all night and some part of the morning, I don't think very much about the matter.

"All convulsions end with me in rhyme; and to solace my midnights, I have scribbled another Turkish story[86]--not a Fragment--which you will receive soon after this. It does not trench upon your kingdom in the least, and if it did, you would soon reduce me to my proper boundaries. You will think, and justly, that I run some risk of losing the little I have gained in fame, by this further experiment on public patience; but I have really ceased to care on that head. I have written this, and published it, for the sake of the _employment_,--to wring my thoughts from reality, and take refuge in 'imaginings,' however 'horrible;' and, as to success! those who succeed will console me for a failure--excepting yourself and one or two more, whom luckily I love too well to wish one leaf of their laurels a tint yellower. This is the work of a week, and will be the reading of an hour to you, or even less,--and so, let it go * * * *.

"P.S. Ward and I _talk_ of going to Holland. I want to see how a Dutch canal looks after the Bosphorus. Pray respond."

[Footnote 86: The Bride of Abydos.]

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