Yours with gratitude and affection,
S. T. Coleridge.
X. TO MRS. EVANS.
February 13, 1792.
My very Dear,—What word shall I add sufficiently expressive of the warmth which I feel? You covet to be near my heart. Believe me, that you and my sister have the very first row in the front box of my heart’s little theatre—and—God knows! you are not crowded. There, my dear spectators! you shall see what you shall see—Farce, Comedy, and Tragedy—my laughter, my cheerfulness, and my melancholy. A thousand figures pass before you, shifting in perpetual succession; these are my joys and my sorrows, my hopes and my fears, my good tempers and my peevishness: you will, however, observe two that remain unalterably fixed, and these are love and gratitude. In short, my dear Mrs. Evans, my whole heart shall be laid open like any sheep’s heart; my virtues, if I have any, shall not be more exposed to your view than my weaknesses. Indeed, I am of opinion that foibles are the cement of affection, and that, however we may admire a perfect character, we are seldom inclined to love and praise those whom we cannot sometimes blame. Come, ladies! will you take your seats in this play-house? Fool that I am! Are you not already there? Believe me, you are!
I am extremely anxious to be informed concerning your health. Have you not felt the kindly influence of this more than vernal weather, as well as the good effects of your own recommenced regularity? I would I could transmit you a little of my superfluous good health! I am indeed at present most wonderfully well, and if I continue so, I may soon be mistaken for one of your very children: at least, in clearness of complexion and rosiness of cheek I am no contemptible likeness of them, though that ugly arrangement of features with which nature has distinguished me will, I fear, long stand in the way of such honorable assimilation. You accuse me of evading the bet, and imagine that my silence proceeded from a consciousness of the charge. But you are mistaken. I not only read your letter first, but, on my sincerity! I felt no inclination to do otherwise; and I am confident, that if Mary had happened to have stood by me and had seen me take up her letter in preference to her mother’s, with all that ease and energy which she can so gracefully exert upon proper occasions, she would have lifted up her beautiful little leg, and kicked me round the room. Had Anne indeed favoured me with a few lines, I confess I should have seized hold of them before either of your letters; but then this would have arisen from my love of novelty, and not from any deficiency in filial respect. So much for your bet!
You can scarcely conceive what uneasiness poor Tom’s accident has occasioned me; in everything that relates to him I feel solicitude truly fraternal. Be particular concerning him in your next. I was going to write him an half-angry letter for the long intermission of his correspondence; but I must change it to a consolatory one. You mention not a word of Bessy. Think you I do not love her?
And so, my dear Mrs. Evans, you are to take your Welsh journey in May? Now may the Goddess of Health, the rosy-cheeked goddess that blows the breeze from the Cambrian mountains, renovate that dear old lady, and make her young again! I always loved that old lady’s looks. Yet do not flatter yourselves, that you shall take this journey tête-à-tête. You will have an unseen companion at your side, one who will attend you in your jaunt, who will be present at your arrival; one whose heart will melt with unutterable tenderness at your maternal transports, who will climb the Welsh hills with you, who will feel himself happy in knowing you to be so. In short, as St. Paul says, though absent in body, I shall be present in mind. Disappointment? You must not, you shall not be disappointed; and if a poetical invocation can help you to drive off that ugly foe to happiness here it is for you.
TO DISAPPOINTMENT.
Hence! thou fiend of gloomy sway,
Thou lov’st on withering blast to ride
O’er fond Illusion’s air-built pride.
Sullen Spirit! Hence! Away!
Where Avarice lurks in sordid cell,
Or mad Ambition builds the dream,
Or Pleasure plots th’ unholy scheme
There with Guilt and Folly dwell!
But oh! when Hope on Wisdom’s wing
Prophetic whispers pure delight,
Be distant far thy cank’rous blight,
Demon of envenom’d sting.
Then haste thee, Nymph of balmy gales!
Thy poet’s prayer, sweet May! attend!
Oh! place my parent and my friend
’Mid her lovely native vales.
Peace, that lists the woodlark’s strains,
Health, that breathes divinest treasures,
Laughing Hours, and Social Pleasures
Wait my friend in Cambria’s plains.
Affection there with mingled ray
Shall pour at once the raptures high
Of filial and maternal Joy;
Haste thee then, delightful May!
And oh! may Spring’s fair flowerets fade,
May Summer cease her limbs to lave
In cooling stream, may Autumn grave
Yellow o’er the corn-cloath’d glade;
Ere, from sweet retirement torn,
She seek again the crowded mart:
Nor thou, my selfish, selfish heart
Dare her slow return to mourn!
In what part of the country is my dear Anne to be? Mary must and shall be with you. I want to know all your summer residences, that I may be on that very spot with all of you. It is not improbable that I may steal down from Cambridge about the beginning of April just to look at you, that when I see you again in autumn I may know how many years younger the Welsh air has made you. If I shall go into Devonshire on the 21st of May, unless my good fortune in a particular affair should detain me till the 4th of June.