JWC TO HELENA FERME ; 12 April 1857; DOI: 10.1215/lt-18570412-JWC-HFE-01; CL 32: 125-127
JWC TO HELENA FERME
[ca. 12 April 1857]
I don't know if you are old enough to remember hearing of Mrs Jordan the great comic actress?1 I once saw her, when I was six years old. At all events you are old enough to have heard of King William! Well, the man who drew these clever little pictures is a grandson2 of these two people, and takes I suppose his comic talent from the actress-grandmother. … I fell very ill again … and have been all these months confined to two rooms, coughing, and not sleeping, and very weak and dull. So, since my return from Scotland in the beginning of October, up to nearly the present time, I have had only a
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Hugh Miller, by J. G. Tunny Reproduced from Hugh Miller, Testimony of the Rocks (1857) |
fortnight (about Xmas) free from colds! The weather is now very favourable for the like of me, and I have been out a few times. But instead of walking twelve miles at a stretch, as was my practice, I now think much of twelve yards! My cough is nearly quite gone however, and I have no other ailment but weakness. In such a long confinement, I found consuming my own smoke3 about as much as I was up to. That I must certainly have managed to do; for Mr Carlyle has paid me so many compliments on my ‘patience’! and compliment is not in Mr C's line.
