LXXXVIII. TO THE SAME.
[Ratzeburg], October 20, 1798.
... But I must check these feelings and write more collectedly. I am well, my dear Love! very well, and my situation is in all respects comfortable. My room is large and healthy; the house commands an enchanting prospect. The pastor is worthy and a learned man—a widower with eight children, five of whom are at home. The German language is spoken here in the utmost purity. The children often stand round my sofa and chatter away; and the little one of all corrects my pronunciation with a pretty pert lisp and self-sufficient tone, while the others laugh with no little joyance. The Gentry and Nobility here pay me almost an adulatory attention. There is a very beautiful little woman—less, I think, than you—a Countess Kilmansig;[190] her father is our Lord Howe’s cousin. She is the wife of a very handsome man, and has two fine little children. I have quite won her heart by a German poem which I wrote. It is that sonnet, “Charles! my slow heart was only sad when first,” and considerably dilated with new images, and much superior in the German to its former dress. It has excited no small wonder here for its purity and harmony. I mention this as a proof of my progress in the language—indeed, it has surprised myself; but I want to be home, and I work hard, very hard, to shorten the time of absence. The little Countess said to me, “Oh! Englishmen be always sehr gut fathers and husbands. I hope dat you will come and lofe my little babies, and I will sing to you and play on the guitar and the pianoforte; and my dear huspan he sprachs sehr gut English, and he lofes England better than all the world.” (Sehr gut is very good; sprach, speaks or talks.) She is a sweet little woman, and, what is very rare in Germany, she has perfectly white, regular, French teeth. I could give you many instances of the ridiculous partiality, or rather madness, for the English. One of the first things which strikes an Englishman is the German cards. They are very different from ours; the court cards have two heads, a very convenient thing, as it prevents the necessity of turning the cards and betraying your hand, and are smaller and cost only a penny; yet the envelope in which they are sold has “Wahrlich Englische Karten,” that is, genuine English cards. I bought some sticking-plaister yesterday; it cost twopence a very large piece, but it was three-halfpence farthing too dear—for indeed it looked like a nasty rag of black silk which cat or mouse dung had stained and spotted—but this was “Königl. Pat. Engl. Im. Pflaster,” that is, Royal Patent English Ornament Plaister. They affect to write English over their doors. One house has “English Lodgement and Caffee Hous!” But the most amusing of all is an advertisement of a quack medicine of the same class with Dr. Solomon’s and Brody’s, for the spirits and all weakness of mind and body. What, think you? “A wonderful and secret Essence extracted with patience and God’s blessing from the English Oaks, and from that part thereof which the heroic sailors of that Great Nation call the Heart of Oak. This invaluable and infallible Medicine has been godlily extracted therefrom by the slow processes of the Sun and magnetical Influences of the Planets and fixed Stars.” This is a literal translation. At the concert, when I entered, the band played “Britannia rule the waves,” and at the dinner which was given in honour of Nelson’s victory, twenty-one guns were fired by order of the military Governor, and between each firing the military band played an English tune. I never saw such enthusiasm, or heard such tumultuous shouting, as when the Governor gave as a toast, “The Great Nation.” By this name they always designate England, in opposition to the same title self-assumed by France. The military Governor is a pleasant man, and both he and the Amtmann (i. e. the civil regent) are particularly attentive to me. I am quite domesticated in the house of the latter; his first wife was an English woman, and his partiality for England is without bounds. God bless you, my Love! Write me a very, very long letter; write me all that can cheer me; all that will make my eyes swim and my heart melt with tenderness! Your faithful and affectionate husband,
S. T. Coleridge.
P. S. A dinner lasts not uncommonly three hours!
LXXXIX. TO THE SAME.
Ratzeburg, November 26, 1798.
Another and another and yet another post day; and still Chester greets me with, “No letters from England!” A knell, that strikes out regularly four times a week. How is this, my Love? Why do you not write to me? Do you think to shorten my absence by making it insupportable to me? Or perhaps you anticipate that if I received a letter I should idly turn away from my German to dream of you—of you and my beloved babies! Oh, yes! I should indeed dream of you for hours and hours; of you, and of beloved Poole, and of the infant that sucks at your breast, and of my dear, dear Hartley. You would be present, you would be with me in the air that I breathe; and I should cease to see you only when the tears rolled out of my eyes, and this naked, undomestic room became again visible. But oh, with what leaping and exhilarated faculties should I return to the objects and realities of my mission. But now—nay, I cannot describe to you the gloominess of thought, the burthen and sickness of heart, which I experience every post day. Through the whole remaining day I am incapable of everything but anxious imaginations, of sore and fretful feelings. The Hamburg newspapers arrive here four times a week; and almost every newspaper commences with, “Schreiben aus London—They write from London.” This day’s, with schreiben aus London, vom November 13. But I am certain that you have written more than once; and I stumble about in dark and idle conjectures, how and by what means it can have happened that I have not received your letters. I recommence my journal, but with feelings that approach to disgust—for in very truth I have nothing interesting to relate.