DEAR Gillman,—Allsop brought
me your kind message yesterday. How can I account for having not visited
Highgate this long time? Change of place seemed to have changed me. How grieved
I was to hear in what indifferent health Coleridge has been, and I not to know of it! A little school
divinity, well applied, may be healing. I send him honest Tom of Aquin; that was always an obscure great
idea to me: I never thought or dreamed to see him in the flesh, but
t’other day I rescued him from a stall in Barbican, and brought him off
in triumph. He comes to greet Coleridge’s
acceptance, for his shoe-latchets I am unworthy to unloose. Yet there are
pretty pro’s and con’s, and such unsatisfactory learning in him.
Commend me to the question of etiquette—“utrum annunciatio debuerit fieri per
angelum”—Quæst. 30, Articulus 2. I protest, till now I had thought
Gabriel a fellow of some mark and livelihood, not a
simple esquire, as I find him. Well, do not break your lay brains, nor I
neither, with these curious nothings. They are nuts to our dear friend, whom
hoping to see at your first friendly hint that it will be convenient, I end
with begging our very kindest loves
1829 | WESTWOOD COTTAGE | 817 |
God send us one happy meeting!—Yours faithfully,