CLXXIX. TO HIS WIFE.
Spring, 1810.
My dear Love,—I understand that Mr. De Quincey is going to Keswick to-morrow; though between ourselves he is as great a to-morrower to the full as your poor husband, and without his excuses of anxiety from latent disease and external pressure.
Now as Lieutenant Southey is with you, I fear that you could not find a bed for me if I came in on Monday or Tuesday. I not only am desirous to be with you and Sara for a while, but it would be of great importance to me to be within a post of Penrith for the next fortnight or three weeks. How long Mr. De Quincey may stay I cannot guess. He (Miss Wordsworth says) talks of a week, but Lloyd of a month! However, put yourself to no violence of inconvenience, only be sure to write to me (N. B.—to me) by the carrier to-morrow.
I am middling, but the state of my spirit of itself requires a change of scene. Catherine W. [the Wordsworths’ little daughter] has not recovered the use of her arm, etc., but is evidently recovering it, and in all other respects in better health than before,—indeed, so much better as to confirm my former opinion that nature was weak in her, and can more easily supply vital power for two thirds of her nervous system than for the whole.
May God bless you, my dear! and
S. T. Coleridge.
Hartley looks and behaves all that the fondest parent could wish. He is really handsome; at least as handsome as a face so original and intellectual can be. And Derwent is “a nice little fellow,” and no lack-wit either. I read to Hartley out of the German a series of very masterly arguments concerning the startling gross improbabilities of Esther (fourteen improbabilities are stated). It really surprised me, the acuteness and steadiness of judgment with which he answered more than half, weakened many, and at last determined that two only were not to be got over. I then read for myself and afterwards to him Eichhorn’s solution of the fourteen, and the coincidences were surprising. Indeed, Eichhorn, after a lame attempt, was obliged to give up the two which H. had declared as desperate.