Rev. William Alderson: "Is it not strange that I should be laid up with a gouty toe? I fancy, I hear you exclaim, it is not at all strange, for after the eating of fish, the wallowing in ox cheek soup, and consuming a thousand other delicacies prepared by Mrs. Mills for nearly sixty years with impunity; it cannot be strange that the gout should pounce upon him at last .."; he is now getting better; "I suspect your letter of kind advice will be read to me every Monday morning ... but I rather think I must wait until fit the second assails me, before I can bring myself to abstain from all those good things with that firmness and resolution which is so peculiar to yourself ...". 11 Feb. 1834