The Cotman Letters 1834

Your kind conversation before I left Yarmouth must ever be remembered by me. It was on the proper reliance on a God. I am, I hope, a better man & a Christian. Your object on that point is gained, and I feel I have to thank you for much of my eternal welfare, as well as for the welfare of this world. Pray excuse my saying, my dearest Madam, I have ever esteemed you, from the first hour you honoured me with the respect and kindness you thought due to your husband’s (yes) Friend. But never could I have thought a few words from you would have turned the volatile & weak Cotman to a serious & proper looking to himself in the best way the term can be applied.
I shall be as eager to retain the good character my friends have raised for me, for their sake as for my own. My Book of Testimonials shall be most splendidly bound, inlaid, filled with the portraits of my best supporters. My Lions & my Unicorns, Coats of Arms – and each testimonial in a splendidly rich Border of all the finest tints of the Rainbow. For now I am once more in love with Life and myself, it shall go hard with me if I do not in this respect please myself to the very top of my bent.
My dear Friend, Mr Turner, I beg at your hands a few impressions of my Portrait. Some here (dear to me) will take it in a way most flattering to me.
Sir Francis & Lady Palgrave’s House is open to me by especial invitation. This is no light mark of their approbation of my conduct. I know full well neither the one or the other would have made such an offer unadvisedly. I will endeavour to deserve this to be assured. I shall be cautious to select such friends as shall add honour upon honour, and I feel that I shall be obliged to pick & to choose from the multitudes that surround me. Bulwer will not have me at his Chapel till he knows there is not one at the College – which of course, there is, or will be. So much on one point of the many pieces of his friendship. He walked with me to the Museum & introduced me to a Mr Cox, in