46 



too susceptible of attachments. So I feared I had 

 been towards you, my worthy friend, during my 

 last visit to my native land. After having seen you 

 repeatedly, — after having perceived, which I pre- 

 sently did, that you were the man who by charac- 

 ter, conformity of mind, and every other reason, 

 was formed as the resting-place of my best friend- 

 ship, — had I not experienced on my return here 

 such marks of reciprocal good-will, as are greater 

 far than I had any reason or hope to expect, I 

 should now be, as it were, annihilated : I should 

 be the most surly misanthrope on earth. 



I had known many disappointments, and was 

 too much disposed to feel them. Botany, which 

 now and ever is the chief " balm of my hurt mind," 

 would have been abandoned : I had been an use- 

 less burthen on the earth. Now, through you. I 

 may be not an useless member of society. Is it fit, 

 and dare I recall to your memory here, that " Full 

 many a flower is born to blush unseen ; and waste 

 its sweetness on the desert air" ? 



In the circumstances which now oppress me, I 

 have often thought it would be a satisfaction to me 

 if you had seen my child. If she had smiled on 

 you, as she did daily on us ; — if she had stretched 

 forth her little arm to you, you would then at least 

 be better able to conceive our affliction, which, in 

 my calmer moments, I readily allow to be perfect 

 egotism, as she is surely more happy than she could 

 have been with us. My wife and myself were ex- 

 tremely pleased (though with a mixture of cruel 

 emotion) at all the kind attentions you have shown 



