On the tiles

In a final letter to his friend Alexander Cunningham Burns wrote “Alas! My friend, I fear the voice of the Bard will soon be heard among you no more! For these eight or ten months I have been ailing, sometimes bed-fast & sometimes not; but these last three months I have been tortured with an excruciating rheumatism which has reduced me to nearly the last stage. You actually would not know me if you saw me. Pale, emaciated, and so feeble as occasionally to need help from my chair — my spirits fled! Fled! — but I can no more on the subject — only the medical folks tell me that my last & only chance is bathing & country quarters & riding.”