To Mrs. Procter
Accepting an invitation
5 York Buildings, 13 March [1831].
MY DEAR MRS. PROCTER (for Madam, somehow, is not the thing),
I am most pleased to be reminded of my promise, which I must have made if you say I did. I suppose I have been coming to keep it ever since; but it is a long road from sorrow to joy, and one is apt to get confused on the road. Do you know your letter brought the tears into my eyes? I hardly know why, unless it was that I saw Procter had been pouring his kind heart into yours, and you said:—‘We must have him here instead of the coffee-house, and plant him by the fire, and warm him like a stray bird till he sings.’ But indeed a kind word affects me where many a hard thump does not. Nevertheless, you must not tell this, except to the very masculine or feminine; though if you do not take it as a compliment to yourself,—I mean the confession of my weakness,—why, you are not Procter’s wife, nor Mrs. Montagu’s daughter, nor she who wrote the letter this morning to a poor battered author.
PS. I eat any plain joint, of the plainer order, beef or mutton:—and you know I care for nothing at dinner, so that it does not hurt me. Friends’ company is the thing.