50 



Mr. D avail to J. E. Smith. 



My very dear Friend, Orbe, Jan. 11, 1793. 



I have had the very great pleasure of receiving 

 your two last kind letters, which have done me more 

 good than any article of the materia medica; I was, 

 if possible, more impatient than I commonly am to 

 have some news of you. I have been prevented 

 writing to you by an unexpected and very sudden 

 event. In rising from table one day after dinner, 

 the eldest of my aunts, aged 84 years and 3 months, 

 in all appearance in better health than myself (the 

 son of a sister 20 years younger than her), fell after 

 having half crossed the room, exactly as if struck 

 by lightning, and from that moment never uttered 

 one word. Her last conversation was as gay as you 

 can imagine ; and the evening hefore she had played 

 at quadrille as usual. By-the-by, such is their eter- 

 nal habit of cards, that we have had an example 

 this autumn of one man dying, his cards in his hands. 

 Great God ! what a death ! Let me rather break 

 my neck down some precipice (if such be thy will) 

 endeavouring to obtain some new proof of thy great- 

 ness, or in the desire of rendering service to a be- 

 loved friend ! 



The death of my good old aunt, (for a good wo- 

 man she was,) and the sad moments that necessarily 

 follow such events; the miserable state of my wife's 

 health, now near her confinement, and who had been 

 affected very seriously in seeing her fall ; some dis- 

 order in my own health, &c. — have carried me on 

 till now. 



