Coleridge, Sara (1802-1852). - Letter, from an unstated address, to Edward Quillinan (1791-1851), at an unstated address, dated 1847 (from contents). WLMS A / Coleridge, Sara / 46.

My dear Mr Quillinan

I have received your letter with deep joy. At another time to obtain my Father's manuscript, would have filled me with delight; but now that pleasure is scarcely felt - at least for the present - in the deeper satisfaction of having this testimony that the dear departed Saint thought of me, and with earnest affection, [in] her last illness, when she was raised so far above this earth in her frame of mind. There

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have been many who were more serviceable to your dear wife, than I & contributed more to her happiness & welfare; but I think hardly any who had a higher opinion of her, or saw her character & manners & countenance in [[-?-]] more beautiful light.

The accounts of dear Mr & Mrs Wordsworth's firmness in their affliction, both of body & mind, are truly comforting. May they long be supported thus!

The reports of dear Miss Fenwick are not what I could wish. I am disappointed at them - having heard an

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excellent report of her from Mr Henry Taylor, through Mrs H. Marshall. I fear the cold does not suit her as well as the late heat did. She will be glad to hear that [I] have but a slight remnant of neuralgia, not pain, but only tenderness & when the part is touched. I am taking [steel] & quinine. I am in an odd & uneasy state of health; when I look at one side of my state, I pity myself heartily, as a poor weak shattered creature, to whom the grasshopper is a burden; but

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there is another side of me which looks better. I have a healthy appetite & can [walk] five or six miles in the day without any fatigue; & in the course of the day, I take up many grasshoppers, & find I can [[-?-]] carry them. But the inability to sleep without morphine is very sad, & is both effect & cause of much disorder in my nerves.

Herbert writes very happily from Merevale Hall - where he is preceptoring the younger Drydales during the holidays. He finds Mr & Mrs D. "charming people," & finds time to read Italian with young Italian ladies, & listen to music, when his pupils are done with for the day. he has put a paper on the

Ladies of Antiquity in the Eton boy's magazine which is really very smart & clever, & contains one paragraph almost worthy of a mature pen.

I have been charmed with your account of Gil Vicente's Plays. What you say of

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dear Hartley is very comfortable.

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Object summary: WLMS A / Coleridge, Sara / 46