[2] A Christ's Hospital schoolfellow.



VII.


TO COLERIDGE,

_October_ 17, 1796.

My dearest friend,--I grieve from my very soul to observe you in your
plans of life veering about from this hope to the other, and settling
nowhere. Is it an untoward fatality (speaking humanly) that does this
for you,--a stubborn, irresistible concurrence of events,--or lies the
fault, as I fear it does, in your own mind? You seem to be taking up
splendid schemes of fortune only to lay them down again; and your
fortunes are an _ignis fatuus_ that has been conducting you in thought
from Lancaster Court, Strand, to somewhere near Matlock; then jumping
across to Dr. Somebody's, whose son's tutor you were likely to be; and
would to God the dancing demon _may_ conduct you at last in peace and
comfort to the "life and labours of a cottager"! You see from the above
awkward playfulness of fancy that my spirits are not quite depressed. I
should ill deserve God's blessings, which, since the late terrible
event, have come down in mercy upon us, if I indulge in regret or
querulousness. Mary continues serene and cheerful. I have not by me a
little letter she wrote to me; for though I see her almost every day,
yet we delight to write to one another, for we can scarce see each other
but in company with some of the people of the house. I have not the