I sat down and wrote as follows:-

"I hear that you are not well, and am extremely sorry for it. I
wish I were with you, and enabled to assist you as a friend. I hope
your illness is the sole cause why you have not written to me during
the last three days. Did you take offence at my little strictures
the other day? Believe me they were dictated by no ill will or
spleen, but with the single object of drawing your attention to more
serious subjects. Should it be irksome for you to write, send me an
exact account, by word, how you find yourself. You shall hear from
me every day, and I will try to say something to amuse you, and to
show you that I really wish you well."

Imagine my unfeigned surprise when I received an answer, couched in
these terms:

"I renounce your friendship: if you are at a loss how to estimate
mine, I return the compliment in its full force. I am not a man to
put up with injurious treatment; I am not one, who, once rejected,
will be ordered to return."

"Because you heard I was unwell, you approach me with a hypocritical
air, in the idea that illness will break down my spirit, and make me
listen to your sermons . . . "

In this way he rambled on, reproaching and despising me in the most
revolting terms he could find, and turning every thing I had said
into ridicule and burlesque. He assured me that he knew how to live
and die with consistency; that is to say, with the utmost hatred and
contempt for all philosophical creeds differing from his own. I was