Whose last most affectionate letter has run in my head ever since I
received it, and which I now sit down to answer two days sooner than
the post will serve me; I thank you for it, and with a warmth for
which I am sure you will give me credit, though I do not spend
many words in describing it. I do not seek _new_ friends, not being
altogether sure that I should find them, but have unspeakable
pleasure in being still beloved by an old one. I hope that now our
correspondence has suffered its last interruption, and that we shall
go down together to the grave, chatting and chirping as merrily as
such a scene of things as this will permit.
I am happy that my poems have pleased you. My volume has afforded me
no such pleasure at any time, either while I was writing it, or since
its publication, as I have derived from yours and my uncle's opinion
of it. I make certain allowances for partiality, and for that peculiar
quickness of taste, with which you both relish what you like, and
after all drawbacks upon those accounts duly made, find myself rich in
the measure of your approbation that still remains. But above all,
I honour _John Gilpin_, since it was he who first encouraged you to
write. I made him on purpose to laugh at, and he served his purpose
well; but I am now in debt to him for a more valuable acquisition
than all the laughter in the world amounts to, the recovery of my
intercourse with you, which is to me inestimable. My benevolent and
generous Cousin, when I was once asked if I wanted anything, and given
delicately to understand that the inquirer was ready to supply all
my occasions, I thankfully and civilly, but positively, declined the
favour. I neither suffer, nor have suffered, any such inconveniences
as I had not much rather endure than come under obligations of that
sort to a person comparatively with yourself a stranger to me. But to
you I answer otherwise. I know you thoroughly, and the liberality of
your disposition, and have that consummate confidence in the
sincerity of your wish to serve me, that delivers me from all awkward
constraint, and from all fear of trespassing by acceptance. To you,
therefore, I reply, yes. Whensoever, and whatsoever, and in what
manner-soever you please; and add moreover, that my affection for the
giver is such as will increase to me tenfold the satisfaction that I
shall have in receiving. It is necessary, however, that I should let
you a little into the state of my finances, that you may not suppose
them more narrowly circumscribed than they are. Since Mrs. Unwin and
I have lived at Olney, we have had but one purse, although during the
whole of that time, till lately, her income was nearly double mine.
Her revenues indeed are now in some measure reduced, and do not much
exceed my own; the worst consequence of this is, that we are forced to
deny ourselves some things which hitherto we have been better able to
afford, but they are such things as neither life, nor the well-being
of life, depend upon. My own income has been better than it is,
but when it was best, it would not have enabled me to live as my
connexions demanded that I should, had it not been combined with a
better than itself, at least at this end of the kingdom. Of this I had
full proof during three months that I spent in lodgings at Huntingdon,
in which time by the help of good management, and a clear notion of
economical matters, I contrived to spend the income of a twelvemonth.
Now, my beloved Cousin, you are in possession of the whole case as it
stands. Strain no points to your own inconvenience or hurt, for there
is no need of it, but indulge yourself in communicating (no matter
what) that you can spare without missing it, since by so doing you
will be sure to add to the comforts of my life one of the sweetest
that I can enjoy--a token and proof of your affection.
I cannot believe but that I should know you, notwithstanding all that
time may have done: there is not a feature of your face, could I meet
it upon the road, by itself, that I should not instantly recollect.
I should say that is my Cousin's nose, or those are her lips and her
chin, and no woman upon earth can claim them but herself. As for me, I
am a very smart youth of my years; I am not indeed grown grey so much
as I am grown bald. No matter: there was more hair in the world than
ever had the honour to belong to me; accordingly having found just
enough to curl a little at my ears, and to intermix with a little
of my own that still hangs behind, I appear, if you see me in an
afternoon, to have a very decent head-dress, not easily distinguished
from my natural growth, which being worn with a small bag, and a black
riband about my neck, continues to me the charms of my youth, even on
the verge of age. Away with the fear of writing too often!
PS. That the view I give you of myself may be complete, I add the two
following items--That I am in debt to nobody, and that I grow fat.