"Thanks for your letter and for Madame's. I will answer it directly. Will you recollect whether I did not consign to you one or two receipts of Madame Mocenigo's for house-rent--(I am not sure of this, but think I did--if not, they will be in my drawers)--and will you desire Mr. Dorville[39] to have the goodness to see if Edgecombe has _receipts_ to all payments _hitherto_ made by him on my account, and that there are _no debts_ at Venice? On your answer, I shall send order of further remittance to carry on my household expenses, as my present return to Venice is very problematical; and it may happen--but I can say nothing positive--every thing with me being indecisive and undecided, except the disgust which Venice excites when fairly compared with any other city in this part of Italy. When I say _Venice_, I mean the _Venetians_--the city itself is superb as its history--but the people are what I never thought them till they taught me to think so. "The best way will be to leave Allegra with Antonio's spouse till I can decide something about her and myself--but I thought that you would have had an answer from Mrs. V----r.[40] You have had bore enough with me and mine already. "I greatly fear that the Guiccioli is going into a consumption, to which her constitution tends. Thus it is with every thing and every body for whom I feel any thing like a real attachment;--'War, death, or discord, doth lay siege to them.' I never even could keep alive a dog that I liked or that liked me. Her symptoms are obstinate cough of the lungs, and occasional fever, &c. &c. and there are latent causes of an eruption in the skin, which she foolishly repelled into the system two years ago: but I have made them send her case to Aglietti; and have begged him to come--if only for a day or two--to consult upon her state. "If it would not bore Mr. Dorville, I wish he would keep an eye on E---- and on my other ragamuffins. I might have more to say, but I am absorbed about La Gui. and her illness. I cannot tell you the effect it has upon me. "The horses came, &c. &c. and I have been galloping through the pine forest daily. "Believe me, &c. "P.S. My benediction on Mrs. Hoppner, a pleasant journey among the Bernese tyrants, and safe return. You ought to bring back a Platonic Bernese for my reformation. If any thing happens to my present Amica, I have done with the passion for ever--it is my _last_ love. As to libertinism, I have sickened myself of that, as was natural in the way I went on, and I have at least derived that advantage from vice, to _love_ in the better sense of the word. _This_ will be my last adventure--I can hope no more to inspire attachment, and I trust never again to feel it." [Footnote 39: The Vice-Consul of Mr. Hoppner.]