Page:Memoirs of the Lady Hester Stanhope.djvu/195



December 21, 1837.—I had sat up until two in the morning, despatching letters to Europe, which I had written by Lady Hester's dictation, through the channel of M. Guys, the French consul at Beyrout, who, alone, among the Europeans there, had contrived to remain on friendly terms with her. In my letter to him, Lady Hester required that I should tell him she was in a state of convalescence. Alas! she was far from being so; for, on going to her, I found her labouring under many bad symptoms, against which she contended with a spirit that seemed to brook no control—not even from nature herself. As she could