John doesn’t write to Abigail for several days, basically because it is thought that it would be too dangerous to send letters out from the infected hospital. Even though Abigail had promised to “smoke” all his letters to purify them, John didn’t want to take the risk of infecting her. However, Abigail doesn’t know why he isn’t responding to her letters, and she goes into a bit of a tailspin.
Can you tell how much I love this woman? I know it’s an illusion that I feel like I know her – but I can certainly say this: I feel privileged to read her private letters. Privileged to be let into her world, her thought process.
Abigail to John April 20th 1764
What does it signify, why may not I visit you a Days as well as Nights? I no sooner close my Eyes than some invisible Being, swift as the Alborack of Mahomet, bears me to you. I see you, but cannot make my self visible to you. That tortures me, but it is still worse when I do not come for I am then haunted by half a dozen ugly Sprights. One will catch me and leep into the Sea, an other will carry me up a precipice (like that which Edgar describes to Lear), then toss me down, and were I not then light as the Gosemore I should shiver into atoms — an other will be pouring down my throat stuff worse than the witches Broth in Macbeth. — Where I shall be carried next I know not, but I had rather have the small pox by inoculation half a dozen times than be sprighted about as I am.
