Princess Anne Dec 12th, 1813
My dearest sister
Your letter and supplement arriv’d this morning, and although Mr Post was so rude as to run up against my pot-metal pate and make me forget, in the delight of reading some of his cargo of verbosities, that I had any of them to answer; and for all this post has posted off long ago, I cannot forbear scribbling a little to you tonight. Now all my work is done, my scraps picked up and bundled away in my raggery and Elizabeth gone to bed. Sweet Tranquility! Ooh, delightful solitude, thought-breathing silence! How seldom are ye my well behaved companions, at my beck [to] assist me dear ones! There’s not a murmur and stir----oh I forgot! Now, how sorry I am I can’t bring in leaves! There’s not a tree in the room! Not so much as a sprig of geranium. Nothing at all, but one poor little starved hyacinth, of the kind, that the murmur cou’d stir, except myself, and I mortally hate murmurs in doors; so they cou’d move me; but I won’t do to come in to the apostrophe1 in this place, and stirs---stirs----let me think—oh! Now I have it, not a murmur stirs the ashes! Yes, here’s plenty of ashes just under my toes in the fireplace; and very little fire, so that a breeze or a murmur might stir them very easily.