MY dear Matilda,—Coleridge has
given me a very chearful promise that he will wait on Lady Jerningham any day you will be pleased to
appoint; he offered to write to you; but I found it was to be done tomorrow, and as I am pretty well acquainted with his
tomorrows, I thought good to let you know his determination today. He is in
town today, but as he is often going to Hammersmith for a night or two, you had
better perhaps send the invitation through me, and I will manage it for you as
well as I can. You had better let him have four or five days’ previous
notice, and you had better send the invitation as soon as you can; for he seems
tolerably well just now. I mention all these betters, because I wish to do the
best I can for you, perceiving, as I do, it is a thing
| 1811 | MISS DUNCAN | 429 |
You have been very good of late to let me come and see you so seldom, and you are a little goodish to come so seldom here, because you stay away from a kind motive. But if you stay away always, as I fear you mean to do, I would not give one pin for your good intentions. In plain words, come and see me very soon; for though I be not sensitive as some people, I begin to feel strange qualms for having driven you from me.
Alas! Wednesday shines no more to me now.
Miss Duncan played famously in the new comedy, which went off as famously. By the way, she put in a spiteful piece of wit, I verily believe of her own head; and methought she stared me full in the face. The words were “As silent as an author in company.” Her hair and herself looked remarkably well.
