ABSTRACT
One must love you as mightily as I do, dear Cousin, to resolve to write to you in a season when the weather is so excessive hot. Whatever has been told me and whatever I could imagine of it is nothing in comparison to what I now feel. To defend myself from the heat, I leave open all my windows all night long without fearing the Gallic [i.e. Galician] winds which cripple a body. I sleep bare-head; I put my hands and feet in snow enough to kill one; but I think ’tis much at one to die as to be smothered with heat as they are here. ’tis midnight before one feels the least breath of air from the western breezes.
