But I would a thousand-fold rather go with you
whithersoever you go. I shall be anxious to hear how you have gone on
since I left you. You should decide in favour of a better climate
somewhere or other. The best scheme I can think of, is to go to some
part of Italy or Sicily, which we both liked. I would look out for two
houses. Wordsworth and his family would take the one, and I the other,
and then you might have a home either with me, or if you thought of Mr.
and Mrs. Luff, under this modification, one of your own; and in either
case you would have neighbours, and so return to England when the home
sickness pressed heavy upon you, and back to Italy when it was abated,
and the climate of England began to poison your comforts. So you would
have abroad in a genial climate, certain comforts of society among
simple and enlightened men and women; and I should be an alleviation of
the pang which you will necessarily feel, as often as you quit your own
family.
I know no better plan: for travelling in search of objects is at best a
dreary business, and whatever excitement it might have had, you must
have exhausted it. God bless you, my dear friend. I write with dim eyes,
for indeed, indeed, my heart is very full of affectionate sorrowful
thoughts toward you.
I write with difficulty, with all the fingers but one of my right hand
very much swollen.
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