HEH STO 921 (Box 21). Date: 25 March 1821. From Charles O’Conor at Stowe to Mary Arundell.

[…] The older I get the more I feel that I am irresistibly driven for ward to some other place. The loss of friends tells me in awful and melancholy characters that I am a stranger here, almost every day adds a new letter to that alphabet […]

[…] I have dined alone this day—you may guess with what feelings when I inform you, but need I inform you? that this is Lady Buck^ms birth day—that there is nobody here, & that this great House is as dull & silent as the Church yard! […] Alas! Where is all that delightful society gone to? Could you believe that such a dull fellow as I am have been employing myself this last solitary hour in working verses to banish thought. Take one specimen

What Suns beyond this dazzling wish may shine

What thunders roll. What orbs to orbs incline

Leave me to dark hereafter. Mighty power

Those wonders wait thy all unfolding hour

It is not for us forbidden Alps to climb

Or march beyond the rapid march

Give me but one request, only this

Oh let me meet the friends I love in bliss