“You would not say, if you were here now, that nature
had not done her best for us. Everything is looking beautiful, everything in
bloom. It is impossible for me to come just yet to London, but I will if I live
in June. Yet do not fancy that I am here in rude health, walking about, and
being notable and bountiful. I am like the wreck of a little boat, for I never
come up to the sublime and beautiful—merely a little gay merry boat, which
perhaps stranded itself at Vauxhall or London Bridge—or wounded without killing
itself, as a butterfly does in a tallow candle. There is
| 268 | WILLIAM GODWIN |
“God preserve you.—Yours,
