‘When I come home, I mean to rat-and-be-married: i.e., if I can hook in anyone to be such a fool. The great difference between a wife and a friend is that a wife cannot cut one, and a friend can. It is a bad thing περισσὰ φρονεῖν, so I shall certainly rat.[203] I see that … [Henry Wilberforce][204] has … Old [Ryder’s] apostacy I knew of before. [Isaac][205] cannot hold out long, if he is not fallen already. So why should you and I be wiser than our neighbours?[206] Some months ago, before I had repented of my radicalism, I was devising a scheme for you, which was knocked on the head by
my finding from The British Magazine that you were ordained by the Bishop of Oxford.[207] For my part, I would rather have had my orders from a Scotch Bishop, and I thought of suggesting the same to you. The stream is purer, and, besides, it would have left one free from some embarrassing engagements.[208] By the by, all I know about any of you is through The British Magazine…. I am very thirsty for more authentic information. Not that I would have you write to me after the receipt of this letter, though; for by that time I shall most likely be on my way back. I shall start as early as I can in April, and I really begin now to think that I shall come back cured. At least people tell me that since the weather has become cooler I have altered for the better in appearance rapidly, and certainly I have in strength…. For the last three weeks, I have had a horse, which I have been cool enough to smug from the Bishop’s stables in his absence;[209] and this, I think, has been of use to me.’
The letter to Newman, as usual, goes deeper, and touches sadly on more intimate matters.
‘… There was a passage in a letter I have just received from my father that made me feel so infinitely dismal, that I must write to you about it. He says you have written to him to learn something about me, and to ask what to do with my money. It really made me feel as if I was dead, and you were sweeping up my remains; and, by the by, if I was dead, why should I be cut off from the privilege of helping on the Good Cause? I don’t know what money I left: little enough
I suspect; but, whatever it was, I am superstitious enough to think that any good it could do “in honorem Dei et sacrosanctæ Matris Ecclesiæ,” would have done something too “in salutem animæ meæ.”
‘… My father’s letter was a dismal one altogether. He tells me Isaac[210] is far from well, and Sir George and Lady Prevost obliged to leave England. Also that my poor sister [Phillis] has just sailed for Madeira to escape the winter, for fear of an affection just like mine…. Also that Mr. Keble[211] is supposed to be on his death-bed. About you personally I hear nothing. As for myself, it really seems as if I was going to have a respite. I have still some symptoms which make me fear it may turn out moonshine, e.g., great irritability of pulse, and shortness of wind in walking up hill. But everyone says, and I cannot help observing, that my looks are greatly altered for the better…. Sometimes I seem to myself very ridiculous to give way to such doleful thoughts, considering how very little there is apparently the matter with me; and if it was not for the effect consumption had taken on my … family, I should be ashamed of myself. But the pertinacity of my trifling ailment has sometimes seemed to me like a warning that fate had put its hand on me for the next [world].
‘When I get your letter, I expect a rowing for my Roman Catholic sentiments. Really, I hate the Reformation and the Reformers more and more,[212] and have almost made up my mind that the Rationalist spirit they set afloat is the ψευδοπροφήτης of the Revelations. I have a theory about the Beast and Woman too, which conflicts with yours; but which I will not inflict on you now. I have written nothing for a long time, and only read in a desultory, lounging way; but really, it is not out of idleness, for I find that the less I do the
better I am, and so on principle resist doing a good deal that I am tempted to. One of the Bishop’s horses has contributed much to my recovery, as well as amusement. To my great satisfaction, I have found that just beyond the range of my longer walks there is a range of real fine scenery that I had not a dream of.