to be, swimming with my commentaries and his own coat of mail in
his teeth and right hand, in a cork jacket, between Calais and
Dover.

"It is the height of the Carnival, and I am in the extreme and
agonies of a new intrigue with I don't exactly know whom or what,
except that she is insatiate of love, and won't take money, and has
light hair and blue eyes, which are not common here, and that I met
her at the Masque, and that when her mask is off, I am as wise as
ever. I shall make what I can of the remainder of my youth."

* * * * *

LETTER 307. TO MR. MOORE.

"Venice, February 2. 1818.

"Your letter of December 8th arrived but this day, by some delay,
common but inexplicable. Your domestic calamity is very grievous,
and I feel with you as much as I _dare_ feel at all. Throughout
life, your loss must be my loss, and your gain my gain; and, though
my heart may ebb, there will always be a drop for you among the
dregs.

"I know how to feel with you, because (selfishness being always the
substratum of our damnable clay) I am quite wrapt up in my own
children. Besides my little legitimate, I have made unto myself an
_il_legitimate since (to say nothing of one before[13]), and I look
forward to one of these as the pillar of my old age, supposing that
I ever reach--which I hope I never shall--that desolating period. I