“I am afraid that I trouble you with my querulous epistles; but this is probably the last. To-morrow decides my fate with respect to her; and the next day I expect to be a free man. There has been a delay pro formâ of ten days. In vain! Was it not for her, and to lay my freedom at her feet, that I took this step that has cost me infinite wretchedness? . . . . You, who have been a favourite with women, do not know what it is to be deprived of one’s only hope, and to have it turned to a mockery and a scorn. There is nothing in the world left that can give me one drop of comfort—that I feel more and more. . . . . The breeze does no cool me, and the blue sky does not allure my eye. I gaze only on her face, like a marble image averted from me—ah! the only face that ever was turned fondly to me!
| 56 | CORRESPONDENCE WITH PATMORE. |
“I shall, I hope, be in town next Friday at furthest. . . . . Not till Friday week. Write, for God’s sake, and let me know the worst.
“I have no answer from her. I wish you to call on Roscoe* in confidence, to say that I intend to make her an offer of marriage, and that I will write to her father the moment I am free (next Friday week), and to ask him whether he thinks it will be to any purpose, and what he would advise me to do. . . . . You don’t know what I suffer, or you would not be so severe upon me. My death will, I hope, satisfy every one before long.
