I caught a cold which brought on a violent nervous fever. This has confined me to my bed for a fortnight, and weakened me to an extraordinary degree. It has not been wholly unattended with danger; but my physician assures me that is quite past; therefore do not be alarmed. Strange that, in a complaint so exhausting, one should be so indifferent to the thought of death! It appears to us only like rest and slumber; and I fervently wish myself such a slow and gradual approach of my dissolution from the body, whenever my time comes. As one that delights in observing, I would fain, so to say, see and feel myself die, as far as that is possible; that is, watch my own sensations and thoughts with full possession of my faculties, and thus taste existence up to the very last moment. A sudden death appears to me something vulgar,--animal; a slow one alone, with perfect consciousness of its approach, refined, noble,--human. I hope moreover to die very tranquilly; for although I have never attained to sanctity of life, I have held fast to the Loving and the Good, and have loved mankind, though not perhaps many individual men. Thus, though not yet ripe for heaven, I wish extremely, according to my doctrine of metempsychosis, to become once more an inhabitant of this beloved earth. The planet is beautiful and interesting enough to like to rove about in it in ever-renewed human shape. But if it be ordered otherwise, I am content. From God and his universe we cannot be cut off; and it is not probable that we shall become more foolish or more wicked; but rather, wiser and better. The sting of death to me would be the thought of your sorrow; and yet perhaps, without the certainty of your love I could not die so happy and resigned:--it is so sweet a feeling in death, that we leave some one behind who will cherish our memory with tenderness, and in and with whom we shall live, so long as his eyes remain open to the light. Is this selfishness? As we are talking of dying, I must mention a melancholy incident. Do you remember a Scottish chieftain, of whom I told you during my last visit to Brighton?--a somewhat fantastic, but powerful and original Highlander. In the full pride of manly strength he has ceased to live. He was on board a steamboat with his two daughters, and shortly before landing received such a blow on the head from one of the yards, that he fell into a fit of delirium on the spot, sprang into the sea, and swam to shore, where he soon after expired. This end has a certain kindred tragic character with the history of an ancestor he told me of with such pride, to which he traced the origin of his arms--a bloody hand on a field azure.--This is the tradition: