From W. Brougham 1839

My dear Slow

Few things w. ^d give me more delight than to pay you a visit—lectures included— & I know & feel, that if I had not been ordered to Hastings, it w.d have done me more good than any thing else, to have been home idle with you & Calvert for a few weeks— The truth is that I have had a good deal to wrong me of late— & what with my mothers death & various other anxieties, I have had rather a climax of troubles within the last few months— I presume the partial paralysis of some of the nerves brought on last Jan. ^y 1839 either by a severe chill or by sleeping for some weeks in a house full of fresh paint & painters, has by degrees extended itself to other parts of the system, & that the increasing ill health I have felt lately, has been in great great measure sympathetic with the decayed nerves— All this has been made worse by worry— & therefore I anticipate considerable advantage from shaking the dust off my shoes against the door of this place & picking up shells at S. ^t Leonards.

I hope to get away on Thursday next or at all events on Friday-- & to be absent about 3 weeks—

All this will prevent me going as I ought to do to Westmorland— & therefore I shall be obliged to take the 5 days holiday at Whitsuntide for that purpose— so that I see no prospect whatever of getting any further absence from my work during the remainder of the Summer— [rest of letter missing]