Page:Blanchard on L. E. L.pdf/170

170 Thus we find her writing on the 10th of October, to a confidential friend. It appears also, from her letter to the writer of these pages, that, notwithstanding her own sickness during the voyage, and her unremitting attention to her husband during his illness, she had written since she had quitted this country, part of the first volume of a novel commenced in England, and twelve of the essays on Scott's Female Characters, in addition to the poems composed at sea. We find her contemplating a long course of exertion for the best of objects, imposed upon her by a rigid sense of duty; as active-minded to serve, and with as much fortitude to bear, as ever; divested, moreover, of the anxiety with which she quitted England, because convinced that she now knew the worst she had to suffer from the climate, and that most of the evils she had anticipated were visionary. Her troubles and distresses, in short, appear to be traceable principally to inexperience in those "house-affairs" which she would "in haste dispatch," but which required a system of forethought and patience, together with considerable practice, to regulate efficiently.

To her brother, above all, she says—

"August 28. ", "Now I hope and trust that this letter will find you well in every way. I cannot tell you how anxious I am to know something about you, and how you are getting on. I was sea-sick till within the few last days, and as to describing the suffering I cannot; it is a wretchedness no one could pity who had not felt; excepting a scrawl to Mrs., I never even attempted to write; my headache was perpetual, and I am still stone