Last night Poole and I fully expected a few lines from you. When the newspaper came in, without your letter, we felt as if a dull neighbour had been ushered in after a knock at the door which had made us rise up and start forward to welcome some long absent friend. Indeed in Poole's case, this simile is less over-swollen than in mine, for in contempt of my convictions and assurance to the contrary, Poole, passing off the Brummagem coin of his wishes for sterling reasons, had persuaded himself fully that he should see you in propria persona. The truth is, we had no right to expect a letter from you, and I should have attributed your not writing to your having nothing to write, to your bodily dislike of writing, or, though with reluctance, to low spirits, but that I have been haunted with the fear that your sister is worse, and that you are at Cote-House, in the mournful office of comforter to your brother. God keep us from idle dreams. Life has enough of real pains.
I wrote to Captain Wordsworth to get me some Bang. The captain in an affectionate letter answers me: 'The Bang if possible shall be sent. If any country ship arrives I shall certainly get it. We have not got anything of the kind in our China ships.' If you would rather wait till it can be brought by Captain Wordsworth himself from China, give me a line that I may write and tell him. We shall hope for a letter from you to-night. I need not say, dear Wedgewood, how anxious I am to hear the particulars of your health and spirits.
Poole's account of his conversations, &c., in Prance, are very interesting and instructive. If your inclination lead you hither you would be very comfortable here. But I am ready at an hour's warning; ready in heart and mind, as well as in body and moveables.
I am, dear Wedgewood, most truly yours,
S. T. Coleridge.
Thomas Wedgewood, Esq."
"Stowey, Feb. 10, 1803.
My dear Wedgewood,
With regard to myself and my accompanying you, let me say thus much. My health is not worse than it was in the North; indeed it is much better. I have no fears. But if you fear that, my health being what you know it to be, the inconveniences of my being with you will be greater than the advantages; (I feel no reluctance in telling you so) it is so entirely an affair of spirits and feeling that the conclusion must be made by you, not in your reason, but purely in your spirit and feeling. Sorry indeed should I be to know that you had gone abroad with one, to whom you were comparatively indifferent. Sorry if there should be no one with you, who could with fellow-feeling and general like-mindedness, yield you sympathy in your sunshiny moments. Dear Wedgewood, my heart swells within me as it were. I have no other wish to accompany you than what arises immediately from my personal attachment, and a deep sense in my own heart, that let us be as dejected as we will, a week together cannot pass in which a mind like yours would not feel the want of affection, or be wholly torpid to its pleasurable influences. I cannot bear to think of your going abroad with a mere travelling companion; with one at all influenced by salary, or personal conveniences. You will not suspect me of flattering you, but indeed dear Wedgewood, you are too good and too valuable a man to deserve to receive attendance from a hireling, even for a month together, in your present state.
If I do not go with you, I shall stay in England only such time as may be necessary for me to raise the travelling money, and go immediately to the south of France. I shall probably cross the Pyrennees to Bilboa, see the country of Biscay, and cross the north of Spain to Perpignan, and so on to the north of Italy, and pass my next winter at Nice. I have every reason to believe that I can live, even as a traveller, as cheap as I can in England. God bless you. I will repeat no professions, even in the superscription of a letter. You know me, and that it is my serious, simple wish, that in everything respecting me, you would think altogether of yourself, and nothing of me, and be assured that no resolve of yours, however suddenly adopted, or however nakedly communicated, will give me any pain, any at least arising from my own bearings. Yours ever,