Coleridge, Sara (1802-1852). - Letter, from 10 Chester Place, to Edward Quillinan (1791-1851), at Loughrigg Holme, dated 9 February 1850. WLMS A / Coleridge, Sara / 49.

My dear Friend

I must give an instalment of my letter debt to you at once, because your last contains a very kind and agreeable proposal which should be noticed at once. A proper response I must defer - I have all my life been rather a busy person - but I now have more work of various kinds to perform than ever before. There is first the domestic business - I cannot spin this out as some ladies do - ladies in the country more than in town - Still the inevitable part consumes a good bit of time in every year. Changing servants is specially troublesome. I have had to give Martha's character three times Caroline's twice - and to see nine or ten more servants and write about others in order to fill their places. This of course is only a specimen - Then

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2 there is the care of my father's books - new editions and new publications - & of this work the unseen part, which does not appear, is more than that which does appear. I might have written many volumes in the time - of a [certain] sort, with far less trouble - 3. Reading with my children - This I am sorry to say has come to very little of late - But I shall resume my studies with Edith in a few days - & mean time she has been always fully employed. We have had talks together about books - But regular readings together must be resumed. 4th Money management - letters of business letters to ones landlord & so forth and all that relates to the care of my income. A wife knows nothing of this. But a widow, even with fellow executors, has something to do in this way every year. My income is troublesome from the many investments. 5th Business of society. This is the hardest work, in one sense, of all the

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work I have to attend to. It is always beginning never ending. For the sake of the children I keep up the game more than I once thought I should ever have attempted. I go sometimes to evening parties and twice nay thrice of late have chaperonified at balls!!!

I do think of all the maternal self sacrifices and devotednesses that can be named that is the greatest - If it wasn't for the supper - Actually I have gone down to supper twice, in the course of the evening out of sheer exhaustion - As the last occasion I fell upon Barry Cornwall - It was like getting into an oasis with a clear stream bubbling & babbling along under beeches and spreading planes & rose bushes and geraniums tufts, & an enamelled flooring of crocus euncula & violet - to be taken care of by a literary man & have a

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bit of poetical and literary talk - after the weariness of witnessing for hours that eternal scuffle & whirl - Herby whirling round the room for ever & ever with first a black haired & then a brown haired and then a flaxen haired and then again a black- haired damsel in his arms - (what queer indecorums those waltzes are! - if 20 years ago one could have seen a set of waltzes of today thro' a time telescope or future scope how we should have turned up the corners of our eyes!) Edy's very small figure rolled along with by some tall black hairy fright - like Orithyia sprawled off by Boreus!!

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2) Your beautiful hand writing quite frightens and makes me write worse than ever, I have been interrupted and forced to write notes of sociality & domesticity - till all the edge of my epistolary zeal is rubbed off - I have seen friends settled with them [about books], and [fried] a satisfactory [[?]], as well as transmitted lunch diaries since I began the letter. I dine out homishly with Edy at six and so instead of translating from my brain to the paper the letter or an abridgement of the letter, which I have been writing to you in thought - "How swift is a thought of the mind!" what pen can more

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than toil after it at a measureless distance & I must speak of your kind invitation and then say farewell for the present - though with an intent of renewing intercourse of pen & ink with you ere long.

Edy read your letter with avidity, and eagerly exclaimed that sleeping with Jemima was no hardship - that she should like extremely to accept the invitation & so forth. I told her I should like her to do so but that - she must recollect our existing engagements. We have promised to pay Mr Morse of Eccleshill & Miss Henches of Tettenhill Wood a Spring visit - Now if Edy could thence proceed to Loughrigg

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Holme - this would indeed be a delightful plan - But I know not whether the time would suit you and indeed the time of our visit is not fixed yet.

I wish very much, if it were possible to visit the sea side first & be a little braced and strengthened ere I enter upon the trial of being in a friend's house - for trial on many accounts it is to me with my strange nerves.

I can hardly describe to you my longings to revisit my native Vale and dear Rydal - But there are difficulties in the way. Twelve hours by the sailward at a stretch I could quite as little accomplish

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as I could walk twenty miles. Indeed I think the latter would not disorder me more than the former. I can, by the sea-side, walk ten miles, five in the morning & five in the evening, on a strong day, without disorder or any injury or exhaustion.

But three hours of passive motion - or if that is an incorrect expression, or suffering motion, the muscles unexerted unexerted, is enough to set up nervous irritations in me and this goes on when [ad an inneral ratio] from that time till the journeys end. I should arrive a shattered creature, unable to enjoy anything for six weeks or more.

The journey might be managed by stoppages on the road & I am always

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3) visionizing on the subject - But there is much to be thought of before it can be affected. I can hardly bear to think of the changes I shall witness. Keswick will be a place of graves to me - but there would be a melancholy pleasure and interest in thinking of the departed - The changes in things & persons that remain are far more unwelcome But I must say good bye in haste

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Edith was at [Hutlalas] great meeting at St Martin's Hall the other night. There was glee singing first of his scholars - then a supper and quantities of speeches - [Hullah] spoke well himself - then the Bishop of London, Helps, (do you know his Friends in Council it is most agreeable) John Coleridge, his son John & many more.

Excuse a horrid hasty scrawl.

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I have often wished to tell you all about Martha and Caroline but the story was long and unpleasant. They have good places at last - But oh! The difficulty to me to keep to the truth and yet incline the ladies to take them!

You must come & visit me - I could even have you and a daughter at the same time - in Herby's Oxford time. With kind regards to Jemima and Rotha, and best love & respects to dear friends at RM.

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Object summary: WLMS A / Coleridge, Sara / 49