528. To John Thelwall

Address: Mr John Thelwall | Kendal MS. Pierpont Morgan Lib. Pub. E.L.G. i. 296.

Nov. 26th [25], 1803. Friday Night My dear Thelwall

I received your Wife's kind & very interesting Letter; but was too ill to answer it by return of Post. I cannot without the most culpable Imprudence attempt to reach Kendal; especially, as I could not possibly arrive there time enough to spend any time at all with your Family -- but I will go to Grasmere, & meet you there, if you come that way -- as by Mrs Thelwall's Letter I promise myself, that you will. -- I shall very soon -- certainly in a week or ten days -- leave this Country, to seek a vessel either for Malta or Madeira -- for I dare stay no longer in this climate. But I will assuredly see Mrs Thelwall -- & her friend -- whose attachment to one unknown or at least unseen, affected & pleased me -- not for myself -- Heaven knows! she might easily have found a less unworthy object of her favorable opinion -- but because such feelings of Esteem & Affection for persons, who are known to us only in spirit, are the exclusive property of minds at once fervent & pure & formative: -minds untamed by 'the dreary Intercourse' of common Life, & inspired by their own natures to believe, & have a Joy in the goodness of others. --

My Health is in a most distressful State; my Bowel & Stomach attacks frequent & alarming. But I bear Pain with a woman's Fortitude/ it is constitutional with me to look quietly and steadily in it's face, as it were, & to ask it -- What & whence it is? -----

If this Letter reach you in time, you will oblige me by going to the best Druggist in Kendal for me, & purchasing an Ounce of crude opium, & 9 ounces of Laudanum, the Latter put in a stout bottle & so packed up as that it may travel a few hundred miles with safety. -- The whole will cost, I believe, half a guinea -- & you will bring them with you in your gig. -- Robert Southey is with me at

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present. He is a good man, a faithful Lover of all that good men once hoped for & must for ever desire / & he has a great respect & kindness for you ----- Wordsworth is likewise here / he came in last night to see me, I being very ill -- but to day I am a good deal better / & hope to derive from you a stimulus strong enough to make your all too short Sojourn with us pleasant to you & representative of old Times. With best good wishes for you & your's

I am as ever, dear Thelwall, | your's S. T. Coleridge

P.S. Do you know G. Braithwaite, Junr -- a Quaker of our friend, Clarkson's, Acquaintance ? -- If you do, I wish you would call on him, present my regards, & in my name request him to procure for me Scotus in Sententias from the Sandys' Library, 1 which you can bring with you / -- You will laugh heartily at travelling in a Gig with old Duns Scotus for your Companion / -- God bless the old Schoolmenl they have been my best comforts, & most instructive Companions for the last 2 years. ----- Could you have believed, that I could have come to this? --