God love you, my dear friend! From Tobin's account, I fear that I must give up a very sweet vision—that of seeing you this summer. The summer after, my ghost perhaps may be a gas.
Yours affectionately,
S. T. COLERIDGE. [1]
[Footnote 1: Letter CXVIII follows No. 107.]
LETTER 108. TO DAVY
Greta Hall, Keswick, May 20, 1801.
My dear Davy,
Though we of the north must forego you, yet I shall rejoice when I receive a letter from you from Cornwall. I must believe that you have made some important discoveries in galvanism, and connected the facts with other more interesting ones, or I should be puzzled to conceive how that subject could furnish matter for more than one lecture. If I recollect aright, you have identified it with electricity, and that indeed is a wide field. I shall dismiss my 'British Critic' and take in 'Nicholson's Journal', and then I shall know something about you. I am sometimes apprehensive that my passion for science is scarcely true and genuine—it is but 'Davyism'! that is, I fear that I am more delighted at 'your' having discovered facts than at the facts having been discovered.
My health is better. I am indeed eager to believe that I am really beginning to recover, though I have had so many short recoveries followed by severe relapses, that I am at times almost afraid to hope. But cheerful thoughts come with genial sensations; and hope is itself no mean medicine.
I am anxious respecting Robert Southey. Why is he not in England? Remember me kindly to Tobin. As soon as I have anything to communicate I will write to him. But, alas! sickness turns large districts of time into dreary uniformity of sandy desolation. Alas, for Egypt—and Menou! However, I trust the 'English' will keep it, if they take it, and something will be gained to the cause of human nature.