Letter/Extract 14

STC to Thomas Poole: May 6th 1799, Monday Morning.

Wordsworth & his Sister passed thro' here, as I have informed you – I walked on with them 5 english miles, & spent a day with them. They were melancholy & hypp'd – W. was affected to tears at the thought of not being near me, wished me, of course, to live in the North of England, near the Sir Frederic Vane's great Library. . . . I still think that Wordsworth will be disappointed in his expectations of relief from reading, without Society – & I think it highly probable, that where I live, there he will live, unless he should find in the North any person or persons, who can feel & understand him, can reciprocate & react on him. – My many weaknesses are of some advantage to me; they unite me more with the great mass of my fellow-beings – but dear Wordsworth appears to me to have hurtfully segregated and isolated his Being . . . (CL I, 490-491).