“I am truly sorry that I cannot accompany you in your ride this morning, owing to a violent pain in my face, arising from a wart to which I by medical advice applied a caustic. Whether I put too much, I do not know, but the consequence is, that not only I have been put to some pain, but the peccant part and its immediate environ are as black as if the printer’s devil had marked me for an author. As I do not wish to frighten your horses, or their riders, I shall postpone waiting upon you until six o’clock, when I hope to have subsided into a more christianlike resemblance to my fellow-creatures. My infliction has partially extended even to my fingers, for on trying to get the black from off my upper lip at least, I have only transfused a portion thereof to my right hand, and neither lemon juice nor eau de Cologne, nor any other eau, have been able as yet to redeem it also from a more inky appearance than is either proper or pleasant. But ‘out, damn’d spot’—you may have perceived something of the kind yesterday, for on my return, I saw that during my visit it had increased, was increasing, and ought to be diminished; and I could not help laughing at the figure I must have cut before you. At any rate, I shall be with you at six, with the advantage of twilight.
“P.S. I wrote the above at three this morning. I regret to
say that the whole of the skin of about an inch square above my upper lip has come
off; so that I cannot even shave or masticate, and I am equally unfit to appear at
your table, and to partake of its hospitality. Will you therefore pardon me, and not
mistake this rueful excuse for a ‘make-believe,’
as you will soon recognise whenever I have the pleasure of meeting you again, and I
will call the moment I am, in the nursery phrase, ‘fit to be seen.’ Tell
Lady B. with my compliments, that I am
rummaging my papers for a MS. worthy of her acceptation. I have just seen the
| A. D. 1823. | LIFE OF LORD BYRON. | 641 |
