If you are at Gunville at Christmas, I hold out
hopes to myself that I shall be able to pass a week with you there. I
mentioned to you at Upcott a kind of comedy that I had committed to
writing in part. This is in the wind.
Wordsworth's second vol. of the 'Lyrical Ballads' will, I hope, and
almost believe, afford you as unmingled pleasure as is in the nature of
a collection of very various poems to afford to one individual mind.
Sheridan has sent to him too--requests him to write a tragedy for Drury
Lane. But W. will not be diverted by anything from the prosecution of
his great work.
Southey's 'Thalaba', in twelve books, is going to the press.
Remember me with great affection to your brother, and present my kindest
respects to Mrs. Wedgwood. Your late governess wanted one thing, which
where there is health is I think indispensable in the moral character of
a young person--a light and cheerful heart. She interested me a good
deal. She appears to me to have been injured by going out of the common
way without any of that imagination, which if it be a Jack o' Lanthorn
to lead us out of our way, is however, at the same time a torch to light
us whither we are going. A whole essay might be written on the danger of
thinking without images. God bless you, my dear sir, and him who is with
grateful and affectionate esteem,
Yours ever,
S.
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