68 GILBERT WHITE OF SELBORNE mi 



You, who have youth, health, and a strong retentive memory 

 on your side, will soon make a vast progress. 



Pray tell your mother that I thank her for her letter. 

 Jack White's time will not be out 'til the 16th of next 

 June, when he and his mother will come Southward among 

 their relations. What mode of life that young man will 

 take up I have not yet heard; whether he will walk the 

 hospitals in town, or become for a time a journey-man. 

 Poor Joe Woods, son of Mr. Jos. Woods, a promising young 

 man of 21, is just dead of a decline, to the great sorrow 

 of his parents, &c. 



With all due respects I remain 



Your affect, friend, 



Gil. White. 

 I propose to return home on Thursday. 



Having had no rain, not once enough to measure, at this 

 place, since the last week in Feb., the degree of dustiness 

 is horrible, and not to be described. As brother Thomas 

 and I walked out this morning a gale rose from the N., 

 which filled the whole atmosphere with such a cloud from 

 road to road that the prospect was quite obscured! 



On the 27th of Feb., Tuesday, the day I left Seleburne, 

 we had such a terrible storm of wind that vast mischief was 

 done in the S. and W. of England. I expected to hear of 

 great damage, especially in Sussex; but was thankful to 

 find that I had escaped with the overturning of my alcove 

 into the hedge, the overthrow of my stone-dial, and what 

 grieves me most, because it cannot be repaired, the ravage 

 of my great wal-nut-tree, which, they write word, is almost 

 torn to pieces ! The gale began at eleven a.m., the wind W. ; 

 but the great damage was done about five p.m., the wind 

 N.W. Soon after a calm succeeded. Derham remarks that 

 most tempests from the W. vere a little at last to the N.W., 

 and then the ravage and damage takes place. 



Pray write, and on large paper. 



