Digital Donne: the Online Variorum
The 1654 Prose Letters Letter 19, cont. (p.57) |
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as long as there is one egge left in the nest, I never leave laying, nor should although you had sent none since; all at last will not amount to so good a testimony as I would fain give how much I am Your affectionate servant and lover, J. Donne. Sir, I write this Letter in no very great degree of a convalescence from such storms of a stomach colick as kept me in a continuall vomiting, so that I know not what I should have been able to doe to dispatch this winde, but that an honest fever came and was my phy- sick: I tell you of it onely lest some report should make it worse, for me thinks that they who love to adde to news should think it a master-piece to be able to say no worse of any ill fortune of mine then it deserves, since commonly it deserves worse then they can say, but they did not, and I am reprieved. I finde dying to be like those facts which denying makes felony: when a sick- nesse examines us, and we confess that we are willing to die, we cannot, but those who are-----incure the penalty: and I may die yet, if talking idly be an ill sign. God be with you. [CW: To] |
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