XIII. TO MRS EVANS.
February 22 [? 1792].
Dear Madam,—The incongruity of the dates in these letters you will immediately perceive. The truth is that I had written the foregoing heap of nothingness six or seven days ago, but I was prevented from sending it by a variety of disagreeable little impediments.
Mr. Massy must be arrived in Cambridge by this time; but to call on an utter stranger just arrived with so trivial a message as yours and his uncle’s love to him, when I myself had been in Cambridge five or six weeks, would appear rather awkward, not to say ludicrous. If, however, I meet him at any wine party (which is by no means improbable) I shall take the opportunity of mentioning it en passant. As to Mr. M.’s debts, the most intimate friends in college are perfect strangers to each other’s affairs; consequently it is little likely that I should procure any information of this kind.
I hope and trust that neither yourself nor my sisters have experienced any ill effects from this wonderful change of weather. A very slight cold is the only favour with which it has honoured me. I feel myself apprehensive for all of you, but more particularly for Anne, whose frame I think most susceptible of cold.
Yesterday a Frenchman came dancing into my room, of which he made but three steps, and presented me with a card. I had scarcely collected, by glancing my eye over it, that he was a tooth-monger, before he seized hold of my muzzle, and, baring my teeth (as they do a horse’s, in order to know his age), he exclaimed, as if in violent agitation: “Mon Dieu! Monsieur, all your teeth will fall out in a day or two, unless you permit me the honour of scaling them!” This ineffable piece of assurance discovered such a genius for impudence, that I could not suffer it to go unrewarded. So, after a hearty laugh, I sat down, and let the rascal chouse me out of half a guinea by scraping my grinders—the more readily, indeed, as I recollected the great penchant which all your family have for delicate teeth.
So (I hear) Allen[27] will be most precipitately emancipated. Good luck have thou of thy emancipation, Bob-bee! Tell him from me that if he does not kick Richards’[28] fame out of doors by the superiority of his own, I will never forgive him.
If you will send me a box of Mr. Stringer’s tooth powder, mamma! we will accept of it.
And now, Right Reverend Mother in God, let me claim your permission to subscribe myself with all observance and gratitude, your most obedient humble servant, and lowly slave,
Samuel Taylor Coleridge,
Reverend in the future tense, and scholar of Jesus College in the present time.