I lately received the thanks of the College for a declamation[23] I spoke in public; indeed, I meet with the most pointed marks of respect, which, as I neither flatter nor fiddle, I suppose to be sincere. I write these things not from vanity, but because I know they will please you.
I intend to leave off suppers, and two or three other little unnecessaries, and in conjunction with Caldwell hire a garden for the summer. It will be nice exercise—your advice. La! it will be so charming to walk out in one’s own garding, and sit and drink tea in an arbour, and pick pretty nosegays. To plant and transplant, and be dirty and amused! Then to look with contempt on your Londoners with your mock gardens and your smoky windows, making a beggarly show of withered flowers stuck in pint pots, and quart pots menacing the heads of the passengers below.
Now suppose I conclude something in the manner with which Mary concludes all her letters to me, “Believe me your sincere friend,” and dutiful humble servant to command!
Now I do hate that way of concluding a letter. ’Tis as dry as a stick, as stiff as a poker, and as cold as a cucumber. It is not half so good as my old
God bless you
and
Your affectionately grateful
S. T. Coleridge.
XI. TO MARY EVANS.
February 13, 11 o’clock.
Ten of the most talkative young ladies now in London!
Now by the most accurate calculation of the specific quantities of sounds, a female tongue, when it exerts itself to the utmost, equals the noise of eighteen sign-posts, which the wind swings backwards and forwards in full creak. If then one equals eighteen, ten must equal one hundred and eighty; consequently, the circle at Jermyn Street unitedly must have produced a noise equal to that of one hundred and eighty old crazy sign-posts, inharmoniously agitated as aforesaid. Well! to be sure, there are few disagreeables for which the pleasure of Mary and Anne Evans’ company would not amply compensate; but faith! I feel myself half inclined to thank God that I was fifty-two miles off during this clattering clapperation of tongues. Do you keep ale at Jermyn Street? If so, I hope it is not soured.
Such, my dear Mary, were the reflections that instantly suggested themselves to me on reading the former part of your letter. Believe me, however, that my gratitude keeps pace with my sense of your exertions, as I can most feelingly conceive the difficulty of writing amid that second edition of Babel with additions. That your health is restored gives me sincere delight. May the giver of all pleasure and pain preserve it so! I am likewise glad to hear that your hand is re-whiten’d, though I cannot help smiling at a certain young lady’s effrontery in having boxed a young gentleman’s ears till her own hand became black and blue, and attributing those unseemly marks to the poor unfortunate object of her resentment. You are at liberty, certainly, to say what you please.