Life mask that almost killed me

[This is one of the last letters I wrote on June 6, 1826, explaining to John Henri Isaac Browere, the artist who did my life mask, that what he read in the newspapers that he almost killed me was false (or at least greatly exaggerated) and that he shouldn’t trouble himself further.]

The subject of your letter of May 20 has attracted more notice certainly than it merited. That the operation to which it refers, was painful to a certain degree I admit, but it was short-lived, and there would have ended as to myself. My age and the state of my health at that time gave an alarm to my family which I neither felt nor expressed. What may have been said in newspapers I know not, reading only a single one and that giving little room to things of that kind. I thought no more of it until your letter brought it again to mind but can assure you it has left not a trace of dissatisfaction as to yourself and that with me it is placed among the things which have never happened. Accept this assurance with my friendly salutations.