In fact, I was thoroughly sensible of the value of your correspondence, and of your kindness in writing to me, and took up the pen to tell you so.

I wrote half of a pretty long letter to you, but I was so disgusted with the imperfect and feeble expression which I had given to some not uninteresting ideas, that I threw away the unfinished sheet, and could not find resolution to resume what had been so inauspiciously begun.

I am ashamed to say, that I write so few letters, and employ my pen so little in any way, that I feel both a lack of words (such words I mean as I wish for) and of mechanical skill, extremely discouraging to me.

I do not plead these disabilities on my part as an excuse, but I wish you to know that they have been the sole cause of my silence, and not a want of sense of the honour done me by your correspondence, or an ignorance of what good breeding required of me.
But enough of my trespasses! Let me only add, that I addressed a letter of some length to you when you were lying ill at Middleburgh; this probably you never received.

Now for your book.