* * * * *

LETTER 183.  TO MR. MOORE.

     “May 31. 1814.

“As I shall probably not see you here to-day, I write to request that, if not inconvenient to yourself, you will stay in town till Sunday; if not to gratify me, yet to please a great many others, who will be very sorry to lose you.  As for myself, I can only repeat that I wish you would either remain a long time with us, or not come at all; for these snatches of society make the subsequent separations bitterer than ever.

“I believe you think that I have not been quite fair with that Alpha and Omega of beauty, &c. with whom you would willingly have united me.  But if you consider what her sister said on the subject, you will less wonder that my pride should have taken the alarm; particularly as nothing but the every-day flirtation of every-day people ever occurred between your heroine and myself.  Had Lady * * appeared to wish it—­or even not to oppose it—­I would have gone on, and very possibly married (that is, if the other had been equally accordant) with the same indifference which has frozen over the ‘Black Sea’ of almost all my passions.  It is that very indifference which makes me so uncertain and apparently capricious.  It is not eagerness of new pursuits, but that nothing impresses me sufficiently to fix; neither do I feel disgusted, but simply indifferent to almost all excitements.  The proof of this is, that obstacles, the slightest even, stop me.  This can hardly be timidity, for I have done some impudent things too, in my time; and in almost all cases, opposition is a stimulus.  In mine, it is not; if a straw were in my way, I could not stoop to pick it up.

“I have sent this long tirade, because I would not have you suppose that I have been trifling designedly with you or others.  If you think so, in the name of St. Hubert (the patron of antlers and hunters) let me be married out of hand—­I don’t care to whom, so it amuses any body else, and don’t interfere with me much in the daytime.  Ever,” &c.

* * * * *

LETTER 184.  TO MR. MOORE.

     “June 14. 1814.

“I could be very sentimental now, but I won’t.  The truth is, that I have been all my life trying to harden my heart, and have not yet quite succeeded—­though there are great hopes—­and you do not know how it sunk with your departure.  What adds to my regret is having seen so little of you during your stay in this crowded desert, where one ought to be able to bear thirst like a camel,—­the springs are so few, and most of them so muddy.

“The newspapers will tell you all that is to be told of emperors, &c.[34] They have dined, and supped, and shown their flat faces