My dear Thompson,
Pray never feel ashamed of not answering my Letters so long as you do write twice a year, to let me know you live and thrive. As much oftener as you please: but you are only to be ashamed of not doing that. For that I really want of all who have been very kind and very constant (‘loyal’ is the word that even Emperors now use of themselves) for so many years. This I say in all sincerity.
Now, while you talk of being ashamed of not writing, I am rather ashamed of writing so much to you. Partly because I really have so little to say; and also because saying that little too often puts you to the shame you speak of. You say my Letters are pleasant, however: and they will be so far pleasant if they assure you that I like talking to you in that way: bad as I am at more direct communication. I can tell you your
letters are very pleasant to me; you at least have always something to tell of your half-year’s Life: and you tell it so wholesomely, I always say in so capital a Style, as makes me regret you have not written some of your better Knowledge for the Public. I suppose (as I have heard) that your Lectures [37] are excellent in this way; I can say I should like very much to attend a course of them, on the Greek Plays, or on Plato. I dare say you are right about an Apprenticeship in Red Tape being necessary to make a Man of Business: but is it too late in Life for you to buckle to and screw yourself up to condense some of your Lectures and scholarly Lore into a Book? By ‘too late in Life’ I mean too late to take Heart to do it.
I am sure you won’t believe that I am scratching you in return for any scratchings from your hands. We are both too old, too sensible, and too independent, I think, for that sort of thing.
As to my going to Ely in June, I don’t know yet what to say; for I have been Fool enough to order a Boat to be building which will cost me £350, and she talks of being launched in the very first week of June, and I have engaged for some short trips in her as soon as she is afloat. I begin to feel tired of her already; I felt I should when I was persuaded to order her: and that is the Folly of it. They say it is a very bad Thing
to do Nothing: but I am sure that is not the case with those who are born to Blunder; I always find that I have to repent of what I have done, not what I have left undone; and poor W. Browne used to say it was better even to repent of what [was] undone than done. You know how glad I should be if you came here: but I haven’t the Face to ask it, especially after that misfit last Summer; which was not my fault however.
I always look upon old Spedding’s as one of the most wasted Lives I know: and he is a wise Man! Twenty years ago I told him that he should knock old Bacon off; I don’t mean give him up, but wind him up at far less sacrifice of Time and Labour; and edit Shakespeare. I think it would have been worth his Life to have done those two; and I am always persuaded his Bacon would have been better if done more at a heat. I shall certainly buy the new Shakespeare you tell me of, if the Volumes aren’t bulky; which destroys my pleasure in the use of a Book.
I have had my share of Influenza: even this Woodbridge, with all its capital Air and self-contented Stupidity (which you know is very conducive to long Life) has been wheezing and coughing all the very mild winter; and the Bell of the Tower opposite my Room has been tolling oftener than I ever remember.
Though I can’t answer for June, I am really meditating a small trip to Wiltshire before June;