Clarke is well; I have never had the
honour of presentation, but I have heard so much of her in many
quarters, that any notice she is pleased to take of my productions is
not less gratifying than my thanks are sincere, both to her and you; by
all accounts I may safely congratulate you on the possession of "a
bride" whose mental and personal accomplishments are more than poetical.
P. S.--Murray has sent, or will send, a double copy of the _Bride_ and
_Giaour_; in the last one, some lengthy additions; pray accept them,
according to old custom, "from the author" to one of his better
brethren. Your Persian, or any memorial, will be a most agreeable, and
it is my fault if not an useful present. I trust your third will be out
before I sail next month; can I say or do anything for you in the
Levant? I am now in all the agonies of equipment, and full of schemes,
some impracticable, and most of them improbable; but I mean to fly
"freely to the green earth's end," [2] though not quite so fast as
Miltons sprite.
P. S. 2nd.--I have so many things to say.--I want to show you Lord
Sligo's letter to me detailing, as he heard them on the spot, the
Athenian account of our adventure (a personal one), which certainly
first suggested to me the story of _The Giaour_. It was a strange and
not a very long story, and his report of the reports (he arrived just
after my departure, and I did not know till last summer that he knew
anything of the matter) is not very far from the truth.
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