In August she had a terrible illness, which she fully anticipated would be her last. "Nothing but the icy hand of death can cool me," she said. "Poor Patty, I shall soon rejoin her."
But the rest was not yet attained. She began to recover, and, when making some arrangements with a friend, she said, "Not that I have the remotest idea of living through the winter, but we must plan for time and prepare for eternity." When a little stronger, she would exert herself, saying it was a mistake in old persons to suppose that because they could do little, they were therefore exempted from doing anything. Even if only one talent were left, it must still be used to the utmost.
She continued to admit innumerable visitors on this, principle, and was as sprightly in conversation and correspondence as ever, trying always to inculcate some deeper thought, and taking interest in new and old books as much as ever, especially the Life of Madame de Staël, about which she had a correspondence with the author, Madame Necker. During an attack of illness she received a letter from Cadell about a new edition of the Moral Sketches, to which he wished her to append "a short tribute to George III. then newly dead. I fancied that what was difficult might not be impossible. So, having got pen, ink, and paper, which I concealed in my bed, and next morning in a high fever with my pulse above a
