Page:Blanchard on L. E. L.pdf/109

Rh constant labour, what unceasing anxiety! yet I never felt dejected till lately. But now I feel every day my mind and my spirits giving way; a deeper shade of despondency gathers upon me. I enter upon my usual employments with such disrelish; I feel so weary—so depressed; half my time so incapable of composition; my imagination is filled with painful and present images. But why should I say all this? perhaps my recent illness leaves behind it weakness both mentally and bodily; but I cannot help shrinking from either exertion or annoyance—I do not feel in myself power to bear either. I will not apologize for this intrusion upon you; I am sure you will not grudge the trouble of reading it, to

"Your grateful and affectionate "."

The occasion that elicited this letter occurred, as we have said, subsequently to the correspondence just adverted to. It proves that the inquiry was not entered upon altogether on light grounds; it shows, moreover, that the slander survived the correspondence, and appeared incapable of being effectually silenced. Yet the refutation which the evil report met, in the course of that investigation, was as effectual and complete as in the nature of such charges—charges so brought and circulated—it was possible to be. The refutation consisted in the utter disbelief in the charge, and the honourable zeal to detect the source of the calumny, that were everywhere evinced. It should be particularly marked, that the correspondence on this subject was not intended to be an inquiry into the truth of the accusation; that, so far from being deemed necessary by the parties to it, by any of her friends—more especially by that friend to whom