Under the Weather with Howard Pyle

I've been laid up with a cold and disinclined to do much of anything. But I've emerged from the fog just enough to pull some quotes from Howard Pyle on the topic that has filled my mind - or at least my head - for the last few days. Here are extracts from two letters to a cousin:

"...upon my word Miss Alice if you could only see my nose - no I mean if you only knew what a terrible cold I've caught. I wish I had jotted an '!' for every time that I sneezed or blew my nose so that your tender heart might pity me accordingly..."

"My conscience pricks me terribly to think that I transferred my most uncomfortable cold to yourself. But courage my friend I am as yet a companion in misery although I can now boast but of a chronic imitation of the mucus membrane culminating ever and anon in an abortive sneeze."