“Dear Fairley,—I have received a second letter from Constable, and the affair of Charles Clairmont is closed agreeably to our wishes. He will be with you in the first week of November. Will you accept him for a friend, and endeavour to keep the lyre of his mind in tune? He is going 400 miles from his home, and the connections of his youth. I rely much on you to endeavour to bend his pliant years to sobriety, to honour and to good. . . . The only question between us and Constable was the period of his absence. Constable proposed four years; this appeared to us an eternity. But Constable has appeared willing, in that and everything else, to accommodate himself in the handsomest manner to our desires. . . . Mrs Godwin says what I have above written about Charles is too poetical, and that you will be apprehensive that it means that I wish him to live with you. Nothing can be further from my thoughts. I think his living expressly and solely under the direction of Mr Constable essential to the purpose for which he goes, and all I desire from you is the offices of friendship on his behalf.—Yours, etc.,
