The Cotman Letters 1834

To/ Dawson Turner Esq.
G[rea]t Yarmouth,
N[or]f[ol]k.
Sept 8, 1834.
43 Gerrard St.
Soho.

My dear Sir, and Yarmouth Friends,
I am much obliged to you for your kind, considerate & enquiring Letter. It gave me as much pleasure as I can well receive at this season of deep anxiety. I will answer your questions – or this, like six or seven others, will be torn up. There is a reserve bidding upon the Copper Plates. 120 g[uinea]s is the price fixed upon the Norfolk Antiquities, 60 plates. 150 g[uinea]s for the Norfolk Brasses, 40 plates. 50 for the Suffolk Brasses. My Health is bad in any way you can take it. I have described it several times this morning, but the pictures have been so truly drawn that they have alarmed even myself and I tore them up.
Everything I valued on Earth seems broken up. I recognise nothing I once dwelt upon. I start up with the intention of referring to something or other, and I find it not: I have it no longer. I want the fortitude & good sense to say it is not [in pencil: painful? peaceful?] feeling to me.
I was sanguine enough in my folly to suppose I could live in London with my family. The income is not sufficient. You have all along known how much I loved home. ’Tis gone.
To my amicable Friend, Lady Palgrave, all my best thoughts are due. It is to her I feel indebted for all I enjoy at this moment!
What I have done, I feel essential to have done. I repine not at that. But I did once feel happiness, compared to what I now feel. A lodging is no Home: a divided family is no blessing. I loved my Home: I loved my family. It was the reward for each day’s labor to be so surrounded and to bless them to their rest. The same temper that has made me see things too happily reverses the picture. I am not equal to more.
My dear Sir,
Your very sincere & obliged
John S. Cotman.