Page:Prose works, from the original editions (Volume 2).djvu/330

 TO MR. AND MRS. GISBORNE.

Pisa, Feb. 9th, 1820. Pray let us see you soon, or our threat may cost both us and you something—a visit to Livorno. The stage direction on the present occasion is, "exit Moonshine and enter Wall;" or rather four walls, who surround and take prisoners the Galan and Dama. Seriously, pray do not disappoint us. We shall watch the sky, and the death of the Scirocco must be the birth of your arrival. Mary and I are going to study mathematics. We design to take the most compendious, yet certain methods of arriving at the great results. We believe that your right-angled Triangle will contain the solution of the problem of how to proceed. Do not write but come. Mary is too idle to write, but all that she has to say is come. She joins with me in condemning the moonlight plan. Indeed we ought not to be so selfish as to allow you to come at all, if it is to cost you all the fatigue and annoyance of returning the same night. But it will not be—so adieu. TO MR. AND MRS. GISBORNE. Pisa, April 23, 1820.

,

We were much pained to hear of the illness you all seem to have been suffering, and still more at the apparent dejection of your last letter. We are in daily expectation this lovely weather of seeing you, and I think the change of air and scene might be good for your health and spirits, even if we cannot enliven you. I shall have