“. . . . I am going to make a sort of promise to myself and to you, that I will write you kind of journal-like letters of the daily what-we-do matters, as they occur. This day seems to me like a new era in our time. It is not a birthday, nor a new year’s day, nor a leave-off-something day; but it is about an hour after the time of leaving you, our poor Phœnix, in the Salisbury stage. . . . Writing plays, novels, poems, and all such kind of vapouring and impossible schemes are floating in my head, which at the same time aches with the thought of parting from you, and is perplexed at the idea of I cannot-tell-what-about notion that I have not made you half so comfortable as I ought to have done, and a melancholy sense of the dull prospect you have before you on your return home; then I think I will make my new gown, and now I consider the white petticoat will be better candle-light worth. . . . .
“So much for an account of my own confused head, and
now for yours. Returning home from the Inn, we took that to pieces, and
ca[n]vassed you as you know is our usual custom. We agreed we should miss you
sadly, and that you had been what you yourself discovered, not at all in our way; and although if the post-
| MISS LAMB’S LETTERS RESUMED. | 133 |
“You are not yet arrived at the first stage of your journey, yet have I the sense of your absence so strong upon me, that I was really thinking what news I had to send you, and what had happened since you had left us. Truly nothing, except that Martin Burney met us in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, and borrowed fourpence, of the repayment of which sum I will send you due notice.
| 134 | MISS STODDART AND HER LOVERS AGAIN. |
“Friday [Feb. 20, 1806]. Last night I told Charles of your matrimonial overtures from Mr. White, and of the cause of that business being at a standstill. . . .
“He wishes you success, and when Coleridge comes, will consult with him about what is best to be done. But I charge you, be most strictly cautious how you proceed yourself. Do not give Mr. W. any reason to think you indiscreet; let him return of his own accord, and keep the probability of his doing so full in your own mind; so I mean as to regulate your whole conduct by that expectation. Do not allow yourself to see, or in any way renew your acquaintance with William, nor do not do any other silly thing of that kind; for you may depend upon it he will be a kind of spy upon you, and if he observes nothing that he disapproves of, you will certainly hear of him again in time.*
“Feb. 21. I have received your letter, and am happy to hear that your mother has been so well in your absence, which I wish had been prolonged a little, for you have been wanted to copy out the farce, in the writing of which I made many an unlucky blunder. . . . I wish you had [been with] us to have given your opinion. I have half a mind to write another copy and send it to you. . . . .
“I miss you sadly, and but for the fidget I have been in about the farce I should have missed you still more. I do not mind being called Widow Blackacre. . . .
“Say all in your mind about your lover now Charles knows of it; he will be as anxious to hear as me. All
* These italics are mine. |
| MISS STODDART AND HER LOVERS AGAIN. | 135 |
