Explore "The Letter" by Hilaire Belloc on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
If you ask me why it is now three weeks since I received your letter and why it is only today that I answer it, I must tell you the truth lest further things I may have to tell you should not be worthy of your dignity or of mine. It was because at first I dared not, then later I reasoned with myself, and so bred delay, and at last took refuge in more delay. I will offer no excuse: I will not tell you that I suffered illness, or that some accident of war had taken me away from this old house, or that I have but just returned from a journey to my hill and my view over the Plain and the great River.
Your messenger I have kept, and I have entertained him well. I looked at him a little narrowly at his first coming, thinking perhaps he might be a gentleman of yours, but I soon found that he was not such, and that he bore no disguise, but was a plain rider of your household. I put him in good quarters by the Hunting Stables. He has had nothing to do but to await my resolution, which is now at last taken, and which you receive in this.