“——You arrived at St. Etienne on the 11th of June, and on the 3rd inst., only three weeks after, according to your last letter, you have the resolution to leave it, and they allow you to depart. I cannot but feel some compunction from the fear that by abridging, you have poisoned all the pleasure you went so far to seek.
“Then, what a contrast will your sober and sombre home afford! No adulation, no worship, no multitudes waiting on your steps! I can send out no procession on horse and foot to meet you at Streatham and Croydon. It is all prose here: life stripped of its romance, its fringe and its gilding, and not unmixed with sad realities. Examine yourself, how far you shall be able to bear it
“William, I think, is decidedly improved. Mr Burney writes this concerning him, ‘My pupil left me in good looks, and with an excellent character. I am not, I believe, extremely prone to bestowing praise, and shall therefore deserve to be believed when I assure you, with real pleasure, that I think your boy very essentially improved. This amendment you cannot, I think, but see yourself, and you will, I know, on such a point not be very unwilling to trust my judgment.’”
