How often have I put off writing a
letter till it was too late! How often had to run after the postman with
it--now missing, now recovering, the sound of his bell--breathless,
angry with myself--then hearing the welcome sound come full round a
corner--and seeing the scarlet costume which set all my fears and
self-reproaches at rest! I do not recollect having ever repented giving
a letter to the postman, or wishing to retrieve it after he had once
deposited it in his bag. What I have once set my hand to, I take the
consequences of, and have been always pretty much of the same humour in
this respect. I am not like the person who, having sent off a letter to
his mistress, who resided a hundred and twenty miles in the country, and
disapproving, on second thoughts, of some expressions contained in it,
took a post-chaise and four to follow and intercept it the next morning.
At other times, I have sat and watched the decaying embers in a little
_back_ painting-room (just as the wintry day declined,) and brooded
over the half-finished copy of a Rembrandt, or a landscape by Vangoyen,
placing it where it might catch a dim gleam of light from the fire;
while the Letter-Bell was the only sound that drew my thoughts to the
world without, and reminded me that I had a task to perform in it.
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