P. S. On being abruptly told by Lady Ball of John Wordsworth's fate, I attempted to stagger out of the room (the great saloon of the Palace with fifty people present), and before I could reach the door fell down on the ground in a convulsive hysteric fit. I was confined to my room for a fortnight after; and now I am afraid to open a letter, and I never dare ask a question of any new-comer. The night before last I was much affected by the sudden entrance of poor Reynell (our inmate at Stowey);[30] more of him in my next. May God Almighty bless you and--
For England. MRS. COLERIDGE, Keswick, Cumberland.
Direct to me at Mr. Degens, Leghorn. God bless you!
MY DEAR ALLSTON,--No want of affection has occasioned my silence. Day after day I expected Mr. Wallis. Benvenuti received me with almost insulting coldness, not even asking me to sit down; neither could I, by any enquiry, find that he ever returned my call, and even in answer to a very polite note enquiring for letters, sent a verbal message, that there was one, and that I might call for it. However, within the last seven or eight days he has called and made his _amende honourable_; he says he forgot the name of my inn, and called at two or three in vain. Whoo! I did not tell him that within five days I sent him a note in which the inn was mentioned, and that he sent me a message in consequence, and yet never called for ten days afterwards. However, yester-evening the truth came out. He had been bored by letters of recommendation, and till he received a letter from Mr. ---- looked upon me as a bore--which, however, he might and ought to have got rid of in a more gentlemanly manner. Nothing more was necessary than the day after my arrival to have sent his card by his servant. But I forgive him from my heart. It should, however, be a lesson to Mr. Wallis, to whom, and for whom, he gives letters of recommendation.
I have been dangerously ill for the last fortnight, and unwell enough, Heaven knows, previously; about ten days ago, on rising from my bed, I had a manifest stroke of palsy along my right side and right arm. My head felt like another man's head, so dead was it, that I seemed to know it only by my left hand, and a strange sense of numbness....