Scripto | Transcribe Page

[page 1]

My very dear Flaxman

You shall be as solemn - nay I will go infinitely farther & say you shall be as severe as you please \nor ?by/ with yr dear pupil but with his Father illeg I trust without exciting in either any sensations towards you except those of the firmest Esteem & of the gentlest Affection.

When I have the Misfortune to have even a shadow of Misundersting [sic] with a Person so infinitely dear to me as you are I always endeavour to annihilate it by giving full scope to the native Tenderness of my Heart instead of indulging any Suggestions of intellectual Pride — I will banish therefore from my Thoughts all that relates to I will not therefore allow myself to recollect that I could easily support \corroborate/ by illeg an ostentatious display of much reading & perhaps by more solid arguments an opinion which I unluckily tested [?] but in the idleness of Pleasantry & in the Frankness of unreserved Friendship without suspecting that it could possibly prove a source of uneasiness — I will rather question myself very strictly to find out what Infirmity in my nature could draw from you a Letter of more Austerity that I expected – Perhap &c a reply \letter in which tho replying/ to a hope I expressed of enjoying much conversation with you in Town that \you/ does not discover the slightest Sympathy in such an prospect an Expectation but rather intimated an apprehension that I meant to obtrude advice which you could not possibly want —