ORIGINAL LETTERSOFLAURENCE STERNE.
Handwritten letter.
Handwritten letter.
ORIGINAL LETTERSOFLAURENCE STERNETODANIEL DRAPER, ESQ.
[Coxwould, 1767?]
I OWN it, Sir, that the writing a letter to a gentleman I have not the honour to be known to—a letter likewise upon no kind of business (in the ideas of the world) is a little out of the common course of things—but I’m so myself, and the impulse which makes me take up my pen is out of the common way too, for it arises from the honest pain I should feel in having so great esteem and friendship as I bear for Mrs. Draper—if I did not wish to hope and extend it to Mr. Draper also. I am really, dear sir, in love with your wife; but ’tis a love you would honour me for, for ’tis so like that I bear my own daughter,who is a good creature, that I scarce distinguish a difference betwixt it—that moment I had would have been the last.
I wish it had been in my power to have been of true use to Mrs. Draper at this distance from her best protector. I have bestowed a great deal of pains (or rather, I should say, pleasure) upon her head—her heart needs none—and her head as little as any daughter of Eve’s, and indeed less than any it has been my fate to converse with for some years. I wish I could make myself of any service to Mrs. D. whilst she is in India, and I in the world—for worldly affairs I could be of none.
I wish you, dear sir, many years’ happiness. ’Tis a part of my Litany, to pray for her health and life. She is too good to be lost, and I would out of pure zeal take a pilgrimage to Mecca to seek a medicine.[37]
Commodore James, by Sir Joshua Reynolds.
Commodore James, by Sir Joshua Reynolds.
Commodore James, by Sir Joshua Reynolds.
TO MR. AND MRS. JAMES.
Coxwould, Augst. 10, 1767.
MY DEAR FRIENDS,
I but copy your great civility to me—in writing you word, that I have this moment recd. another Letter, wrote eighteen days after the date of the last from St. Iago—If our poor friend could have wrote another Letter to England, you will in course have it—but I fear from the circumstance of great hurry, and bodily disorder when she dispatch’d this she might not have time—In case it has so fallen out—I send you the contents of wt. I have recd.—and that is a melancholly history of herself and sufferings since they left Iago—continual and most violent rhumatism all the time—a fever brought on—with fits—and attended with Delirium, and every terrifying symptome—the recovery from this left her low and emaciated to a skeleton—I give you the pain of this detail with a bleeding heart—knowing how much at thesame time it will affect yours—The three or four last days in her journal, leave us with hopes she will do well at last—for she is more chearful, and seems to be getting up her spirits—& health in course with it.—They have cross’d the Line—are much becalm’d—wch. with other delays, [s]he fears, they will lose their passage to Madrass—& be some months sooner for it at Bombay—Heaven protect this worthy creature! for she suffers much, & with uncommon fortitude—She writes much to me abt. her dear friend Mrs. James in her last Packet—in truth, my good Lady, she honours & loves you from her heart—but if she did not—I should not Love her half so well myself as I do.
Adieu my dear friends—You have Very few in the world, more truely & cordially yrs.
L. Sterne.
P.S.
I have just recd. as a present from a right Honble.[38]a most elegant gold Snuff fabricated for me at Paris—I wish Eliza was here, I would lay it at her feet—however, Iwill enrich my gold Box, with her picture,—& if the Doner does not approve of such an acquisition to his pledge of friendship—I will send him his Box again—
May I presume to inclose you the Letter I write to Mrs. Draper—I know you will write yourself—& my Letter may have the honour to chaperon yours to India. Mrs. Sterne & my daughter are coming to stay a couple of months with [me], as far as from Avignion—& then return—Here’s Complaisance for you—I went 500 miles the last Spring, out of my way, to pay my wife a weeks visit—and she is at the expence of coming post a thousand miles to return it—what a happy pair!—however, en passant, she takes back sixteen hundred pds. into France with her—and will do me the honour likewise to strip me of every thing I have—Except Eliza’s Picture, Adieu.
Endorsed:—
To Mrs. James
in Gerard Street,
Soho,
London.
Free Fauconberg.
TO MR. AND MRS. JAMES.
York, Dec. 28, 1767.
I WAS afraid that either my friend Mr. James, or Mrs. James, or their little Blossome was drooping, or that some of you were ill by not having the pleasure of a line from you, & was thinking of writing again to enquire after you all—when I was cast down myself with a fever, & bleeding at my lungs, which had confined me to my room three weeks, when I had the favour of yrs. which till to day I have not been able to thank you both kindly for, as I most cordially now do,—as well as for all yr. proofs & professions of good will to me—I will not say, I have not ballanced Accts. with you in this—all I know, is, That I honour and value you more than I do any good creature upon earth—& that I could not wish yr. happiness and the Success of whatever conduces to it, more than I do, was I your Brother—but good god! are we not all brothers and sisters, who are friendly & virtuous & good?—
Surely my dear friends, my Illness has made a sort of sympathy for yr. Afflictions upon the Score of yr. dear little one—and I make no doubt when I see Eliza’s Journal, I shall find she has been ill herself at that time—I am rent to pieces with uncertainty abt. this dear friend of ours—I think too much—& interest my self so deeply by my friendship for her, that I am worn down to a Shadow—to this I owe my decay of health—but I can’t help it——
As my fever has left me, I set off the latter end of the week with my friend Mr. Hall for Town—I need not tell my friends in Gerard Street, I shall do myself the Honour to visit them before either Lord Shelburn or Lord Spencer &c. &c.—
I thank you my dear friend, for what you say so kindly abt. my Daughter—it shews yr. good heart, as she is a stranger, ’tis a free Gift in you—but when she is known to you—she shall winit fairly—but Alas! when this event is to happen, is in the clouds—M[rs.] Sterne has hired a house ready fur[nished] at York, till she returns to france & my Lydia must not leave her—
What a sad scratch of a Letter—but Iam weak my dear friends both in body & mind—so God bless you—Youl see me enter like a Ghost—so I tell you before hand, not to be frighten’d.
I am, my dear friendswith truest attachment &end esteem Yrs.
I am, my dear friendswith truest attachment &end esteem Yrs.
I am, my dear friends
with truest attachment &
end esteem Yrs.
L. Sterne.
Endorsed:—
To
Mr. or Mrs. James
Gerrard Street
Soho
London.
LETTERSOFELIZABETH DRAPER.
LETTERSOFELIZABETH DRAPER.
LETTERS
OF
ELIZABETH DRAPER.