It does not trench upon your kingdom in the
least, and if it did, you would soon reduce me to my proper boundaries.
You will think, and justly, that I run some risk of losing the little I
have gained in fame, by this further experiment on public patience; but
I have really ceased to care on that head. I have written this, and
published it, for the sake of the _employment_,--to wring my thoughts
from reality, and take refuge in "imaginings," however "horrible;" [4]
and, as to success! those who succeed will console me for a
failure--excepting yourself and one or two more, whom luckily I love too
well to wish one leaf of their laurels a tint yellower. This is the work
of a week, and will be the reading of an hour to you, or even less,--and
so, let it go----.
P.S.--Ward and I _talk_ of going to Holland. I want to see how a Dutch
canal looks after the Bosphorus. Pray respond.
[Footnote 1: Moore wrote to Byron in 1813 an undated letter, in which
the following passage occurs:
"I am sorry I must wait till 'we are veterans' before you will open to
me 'the story of your wandering life, wherein you find more hours _due
to repentance_ ... than time hath told you yet.' Is it so with you, or
are you, like me, reprobate enough to look back with complacency on
what you have done? I suppose repentance _must bring up the rear_ with
us all; but at present I should say with old Fontenelle, _Si je
recommencais ma carriere, je ferais tout ce que j'ai fait_.
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