Leigh Hunt letter to Elizabeth Kent, November 6, 1824

              Maiano-- 6. Nov. 1824.  
Dearest Bessy, 
I have been forced to waste all my morning in disputing with a cheating landlord; & I have now to write my letter, dine, & go to Florence with it to the post by 4 o'clock; & it is past one.  But I did not lead you to expect a long one. 
Your sister hopes that you do not think she took any
steps whatsoever to prevent your coming out.  How Novello
knew what you speak of, or supposed it, I do not know.  I
conclude he gathered it from your own letter.  I have said
nothing to any body breathing, on the subject, but yourself.
Your sister will write to you, she says, very shortly.  Tell
her mother she received her letter, & thanks her for it, as
she will see.  Do not fail to say what I told you about the
sea-side plan.  Tell your mother also, that if Marianne does
not write again in reasonable time (reasonable, I mean, for
her unepistolary faculties, & all sorts of pullings this way
& that by her children) I'll write the letter myself, & she
shall take my place in the post[s]cript.—  Will this message
do any thing in the way of making matters a little more
comfortable, at least for a day or so?  I should hope so, by
the tone of your mother's /message/ post[s]cript to me. 
You are right in not playing any sudden tricks with your opium, though I am anxious for many reasons, that you should try to do without it by some day or other.  But whenever you
 
begin again, you must begin by the minutest degrees.  The best way to do it, would, I think, be that which is recommended to people leaving off wine;—that is to say, dropping an atom of sealing-/way/wax every day (or two days, or whatever time it may be) in the glass, when you take it:—say, a piece of the size of a pin's head.  It might then be advisable, or meanwhile, to use a little more generous diet, if it do not fever you; an advice which I have no scruple to give to you, /are/ as you are not likely to exceed in matters of the table.-—  I have long left off my tea of a morning, which shook my "magnanimous feeble" person
too much;—I have now /---/ left it off of an evening, &
find myself the better for it:—