My dear Miss Novello,—I ought ere this to
have thanked you for the prospectus. I shall certainly avail my-
| DOUGLAS JERROLD AND HIS LETTERS. | 279 |
I presume, ere that time, you will have returned to the purer shades of Bayswater from all the pleasant iniquities of Paris. I am unexpectedly deprived of every chance of leaving home, at least for some time, if at all this season, by a literary projection that I thought would have been deferred until late in the autumn; otherwise, how willingly would I black the seams and elbows of my coat with my ink, and elevating my quill into a cure-dent, hie me to the “Trois-Frères”! But this must not be for God knows when—or the Devil (my devil, mind) better. I am indeed “nailed to the dead wood,” as Lamb says; or rather, in this glorious weather, I feel as somehow a butterfly, or, since I am getting fat, a June fly, impaled on iron pin, or pen, must feel fixed to one place, with every virtuous wish to go anywhere and everywhere, with anybody and almost every body. I am not an independent spinster, but—“I won’t weep.” Not one unmanly tear shall stain this sheet.
With desperate calmness I subscribe myself, yours faithfully,
