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SIR,
THE Messenger who brought me your Letter presented me a just excuse, for I received them so late upon Thursday night, that I should have dispatched before I could begin; yet I have obeyed you drow∣sily, and coldly, as the night and my in∣disposition commanded: yet perchance those hinderances have done good, for so your Letters are the lesse curious, in which,
men of much leasure may soon exceed, when they write of businesse, they having but a little. You mention two more letters then I send. The time was not too short for me to have written them, (for I had an whole night) but it was too short to work a beleefe in me, that you could think it fit to go two so divers ways to one end. I see not, (for I see not the reason) how those letters could well have concurred with these, nor how those would well have been drawn from them, in a businesse wholly relating to this house. I was not lazie in disobeying you, but (I thought) only thrifty, and your request of those was not absolute, but conditioned, if I had leasure. So though that condition hinder them not, since ano∣ther doth (and you forethought, that one might) I am not stubborn. The good Countesse spake somewhat of your desire of letters; but I am afraid, she is not a pro∣per Mediatrix to those persons, but I coun∣sail in the dark. And therefore return to that, of which I have clear light, that I am
always glad, when I have any way to ex∣presse my love; for in these commandments you feed my desires, and you give me means to pay some of my debts to you: the inte∣rest of which I pay in all my prayers for you, which, if it please not God to shew here, I hope we shall finde again together in heaven, whither they were sent. I came this morning to say thus much, and because the Porter which came to Micham summo∣ned me for this hour to London: from whence I am this minute returning to end a little course of Physick.
Yours very truly J. Donne.
Friday 8 in the morning.