The Cotman Letters 1804-1833

78
Mrs Dawson Turner
Yarmouth
Norfolk
March 9th 1825
Sun Hotel Chatham.

Dear Madam,

London, with all its fog and smoke, is the only air for an artist to breathe in. Since I have been here I have trod on air and have actually - but God only knows how - struck off at least ten years of my life. No debility, but all nerve & fire. I hope & sincerely pray to God that this situation which I am now seeking may fall to me. And, if so, you shall no longer see the depressed wuss, fearing the tread of every passenger, but the Man, claiming rank as an Artist my glory & my Pride. With such an opening toil will be only a word. My days shall be devoted to my God, in thanksgiving for his great goodness to me in blessing me beyond ordinary [mentaly?] to my profession and to the happiness of a deserving wife and children, and in so doing, showing to the world that the few Friends in the days of my adversity were not deceived in me.
The kindness shown me by your family have had an influence over me that perhaps it will be well not to speak upon For, without, such a friendship, I must have sunk under the intolerable load of bodily and mental affliction.
May the dawn that now appears on the horizon of my late life spread to a glorious setting sun. I am superstitious, I confess, and sanguine. For when I worried from my last (2nd? sad?) illness I little expected, as was the case, to be thrust down in the scale of intellect & degradation. I hailed my recovery as a gift, a boon, a Rainbow, and welcomed the signals. How they have faded from my sight no one can tell or know but myself. Tears of bitter anguish have I shed and the comfort of the heart has been drowned when similar have floated on the surface to keep affliction from my wife & children. And many a time have I truly been most bitter to them, poor helpless ones, where in my heart i have meant most kindness, from distraction of thought.
Edmund, poor Boy, works for me like another self. Oh, Mrs Turner, how much, how very much, will a child do for its parents when it is but sensible that a parent is doing but his duty [to] by it !!!!!! Your elegant mind can and do know my feelings, and