LXVI. TO THE SAME.
December 12, 1796.
You tell me, my dear Poole, that my residence near you would give you great pleasure, and I am sure that if you had any objections on your own account to my settling near Stowey you would have mentioned them to me. Relying on this, I assure you that a disappointment would try my philosophy. Your letter did indeed give me unexpected and most acute pain. I will make the cottage do. We want but three rooms. If Cruikshank have promised more than his circumstances enable him to perform, I am sure that I can get the other purchased by my friends in Bristol. I mean, the place at Adscombe. I wrote him pressingly on this head some ten days ago; but he has returned me no answer. Lloyd has obtained his father’s permission and will return to me. He is willing to be his own servant. As to Acton, ’tis out of the question. In Bristol I have Cottle and Estlin (for Mr. Wade is going away) willing and eager to serve me; but how they can serve me more effectually at Acton than at Stowey, I cannot divine. If I live at Stowey, you indeed can serve me effectually, by assisting me in the acquirement of agricultural practice. If you can instruct me to manage an acre and a half of land, and to raise in it, with my own hands, all kinds of vegetables and grain, enough for myself and my wife and sufficient to feed a pig or two with the refuse, I hope that you will have served me most effectually by placing me out of the necessity of being served. I receive about forty guineas yearly from the “Critical Review” and the new “Monthly Magazine.” It is hard if by my greater works I do not get twenty more. I know how little the human mind requires when it is tranquil, and in proportion as I should find it difficult to simplify my wants it becomes my duty to simplify them. For there must be a vice in my nature, which woe be to me if I do not cure. The less meat I eat the more healthy I am; and strong liquors of any kind always and perceptibly injure me. Sixteen shillings would cover all the weekly expenses of my wife, infant, and myself. This I say from my wife’s own calculation.
But whence this sudden revolution in your opinions, my dear Poole? You saw the cottage that was to be our temporary residence, and thought we might be happy in it, and now you hurry to tell me that we shall not even be comfortable in it. You tell me I shall be “too far from my friends,” that is, Cottle and Estlin, for I have no other in Bristol. In the name of Heaven, what can Cottle or Estlin [do] for me? They do nothing who do not teach me how to be independent of any except the Almighty Dispenser of sickness and health. And “too far from the press.” With the printing of the review and the magazine I have no concern; and, if I publish any work on my own account, I will send a fair and faultless copy, and Cottle promises to correct the press for me. Mr. King’s family may be very worthy sort of people, for aught I know; but assuredly I can employ my time wiselier than to gabble with my tongue to beings with whom neither my head nor heart can commune. My habits and feelings have suffered a total alteration. I hate company except of my dearest friends, and systematically avoid it; and when in it keep silence as far as social humanity will permit me. Lloyd’s father, in a letter to me yesterday, enquired how I should live without any companions. I answered him not an hour before I received your letter:—
“I shall have six companions: My Sara, my babe, my own shaping and disquisitive mind, my books, my beloved friend Thomas Poole, and lastly, Nature looking at me with a thousand looks of beauty, and speaking to me in a thousand melodies of love. If I were capable of being tired with all these, I should then detect a vice in my nature, and would fly to habitual solitude to eradicate it.”
Yes, my friend, while I opened your letter my heart was glowing with enthusiasm towards you. How little did I expect that I should find you earnestly and vehemently persuading me to prefer Acton to Stowey, and in return for the loss of your society recommending Mr. King’s family as “very pleasant neighbours.” Neighbours! Can mere juxtaposition form a neighbourhood? As well should the louse in my head call himself my friend, and the flea in my bosom style herself my love!
On Wednesday week we must leave our house, so that if you continue to dissuade me from settling near Stowey I scarcely know what I shall do. Surely, my beloved friend, there must be some reason which you have not yet told me, which urged you to send this hasty and heart-chilling letter. I suspect that something has passed between your sister and dear mother (in whose illness I sincerely sympathise with you).
I have never considered my settlement at Stowey in any other relation than its advantages to myself, and they would be great indeed. My objects (assuredly wise ones) were to learn agriculture (and where should I get instructed except at Stowey?) and to be where I can communicate in a literary way. I must conclude. I pray you let me hear from you immediately. God bless you and
S. T. Coleridge.