End of March, 1794.
My dear Brother,—I have been rather uneasy, that I have not heard from you since my departure from High Wycombe. Your letters are a comfort to me in the comfortless hour—they are manna in the wilderness. I should have written you long ere this, but in truth I have been blockaded by a whole army of petty vexations, bad quarters, etc., and within this week I have been thrown three times from my horse and run away with to the no small perturbation of my nervous system almost every day. I ride a horse, young, and as undisciplined as myself. After tumult and agitation of any kind the mind and all its affections seem to doze for a while, and we sit shivering with chilly feverishness wrapped up in the ragged and threadbare cloak of mere animal enjoyment.
On Sunday last I was surprised, or rather confounded, with a visit from Mr. Cornish, so confounded that for more than a minute I could not speak to him. He behaved with great delicacy and much apparent solicitude of friendship. He passed through Reading with his sister Lady Shore. I have received several letters from my friends at Cambridge, of most soothing contents. They write me, that with “undiminished esteem and increased affection, the Jesuites look forward to my return as to that of a lost brother!”
My present address is the White Hart, Reading, Berks.
Adieu, most dear brother!
S. T. Coleridge.
XXVIII. TO THE SAME.
March 27, 1794.
My dear Brother,—I find that I was too sanguine in my expectations of recovering all my clothes. My coat, which I had supposed gone, and all the stockings, viz., four pairs of almost new silk stockings, and two pairs of new silk and cotton, I can get again for twenty-three shillings. I have ordered, therefore, a pair of breeches, which will be nineteen shillings, a waistcoat at twelve shillings, a pair of shoes at seven shillings and four pence. Besides these I must have a hat, which will be eighteen shillings, and two neckcloths, which will be five or six shillings. These things I have ordered. My travelling expenses will be about half a guinea. Have I done wrong in ordering these things? Or did you mean me to do it by desiring me to arrange what was necessary for my personal appearance at Cambridge? I have so seldom acted right, that in every step I take of my own accord I tremble lest I should be wrong. I forgot in the above account to mention a flannel waistcoat; it will be six shillings. The military dress is almost oppressively warm, and so very ill as I am at present I think it imprudent to hazard cold. I will see you at London, or rather at Hackney. There will be two or three trifling expenses on my leaving the army; I know not their exact amount. The adjutant dismissed me from all duty yesterday. My head throbs so, and I am so sick at stomach that it is with difficulty I can write. One thing more I wished to mention. There are three books, which I parted with at Reading. The bookseller, whom I have occasionally obliged by composing advertisements for his newspaper, has offered them me at the same price he bought them. They are a very valuable edition of Casimir[44] by Barbou,[45] a Synesius[46] by Canterus and Bentley’s Quarto Edition. They are worth thirty shillings, at least, and I sold them for fourteen. The two first I mean to translate. I have finished two or three Odes of Casimir, and shall on my return to College send them to Dodsley as a specimen of an intended translation. Barbou’s edition is the only one that contains all the works of Casimir. God bless you. Your grateful
S. T. C.