“Here I am at Renton, amid the hills and groves which
I greeted in their barrenness in winter, but which have now put on their full
green attire, that shows lovely in this northern twilight, but speaks a tale of
sadness to this heart, widowed of its last and its dearest, its only hope. For
a man who writes such nonsense, I write a good hand. Musing over my only
subject (Othello’s occupation,
alas! is gone), I have at last hit upon a truth that, if true, explains
all, and satisfies me. You will by this time probably know something, from
having called and seen how the land lies, that will make you a judge how far I
have stepped into madness in my conjectures. If I am right, all engines set at
work at once that punish ungrateful woman! Oh, lovely Renton Inn! here I wrote
a volume of Essays; here I wrote my enamoured follies to her, thinking her
human, and that below was not all the fiends. . . . . By this time you probably
know enough, and know whether this following solution is in rerum naturâ at No. 9, S. B. . . . . Say
that I shall want it [the lodging] very little the next year, as I shall be
abroad for some months, but that I wish to keep it on, to have a place to come
to when I am in London If you get a civil answer to this, take it for me, and
send me word. . . . . Learn first if the great man of Penmaen-Mawr is still
there.
| 50 | MRS. HAZLITT’S DIARY RESUMED. |
“I would give a thousand worlds to believe her anything but what I suppose. . . . .
