52 LIFE OF 



you of pleasure ; but I thought I foresaw danger, much danger, 

 in your going, in the state of health I thought you in ; and I 

 should have been most miserable had you gone. It is a 

 generally-received opinion that age blunts the feelings ; but I 

 could never at any period of my life have felt more acutely 

 than I now feel everything in which your health and com- 

 forts are involved. My own life I value at little ; I have only 

 to look forward to increasing debility and decay of power of 

 body and mind : but to your health and life I look forward 

 with very different feelings, and I am much more anxious to 

 see you in health than to retain my own life. 



" You must spend the enclosed cheque, which you were to 

 have spent at Paris, in any way that may give you most plea- 

 sure ; and I insist on your keeping it. I shall bear the expense 

 of a journey to Paris, whenever you choose to go. 



" Thy ever affectionate Father, T. A. K." 



" Downton, July 19, 1834. 



" DEAREST E , 



" I have sent you a draft on my banker, which I hope will 

 enable you to send poor Horace to the Lee without incon- 

 venience. You have both had a severe struggle, but I trust 

 your constitution has not been permanently injured, and I 

 venture to hope that his (as not unfrequently occurs) has been 

 favourably changed and improved. 



" The termination of hot dry weather, and the abundant 

 rain of yesterday, of which I hope and conclude you have had 

 a share, will, I trust, be favourable to poor Horace. I have 

 been in some degree confined by one of my little attacks of 

 gout, and my foot continues slightly swelled, but I have never 

 been prevented going to my garden. 



" Your mother is pretty well, but I am sorry to say not so 

 strong as she was last year. She, however, walks to church 

 and back without suffering from too much fatigue ; and unless 

 after sleeping ill, her health is tolerable, and her appetite not 

 defective ; and although she is not so strong as I could wish to 



