Is there any definite service, or any chance of any definite service, great or small, that I can do or promote, or expedite, by coming to town? If there be, let me have a line or a monosyllable _Yes_, and mention the time. I would have set off and taken the chance without asking the question, but that I have so many irons in the fire at this present moment,--1, my Preface; 2, my Essay; 3, a Work prepared for the press by my Hebrew Friend,[137] in which I am greatly interested, morally and _crumenically_, though not like the Modern Descendants of Heber, one of a _crumenimulga Natio_, _i.e._ a purse-milking set; and 4, Revisal, etc., for a friend only less near than yourself.
Mr. Chance, I take it for granted, has written to you. My opinion is, that he will be a valuable man, not only generally, but _especially_ to that which alone concerns _me_--_your_ comfort and happiness. He is a self-satisfied man, but of the very kindest and best sort. Prosperous in all his concerns, and with peace in his own conscience and family, I regard such vainness but as the overflow of humanity. I do not like him the better _for_ it; but I should not like him the better _without_ it. Meantime he is active, shrewd, a thorough man of business; _sanguine_ I should think, both by constitution and habitual success: and, under any sudden emergency, I think that Mr. Chance, not so deeply interested, and yet (such is his nature) with equal liveliness in feeling, would be a comfort to you.
I shall miss the post if I do more than add, that whatever really serves _you_, will (and on his death-pillow quite as much as in his present garret) delight
Your sincere and affectionate friend, S. T. COLERIDGE.[138]
Having disburdened myself of the main loads of outward obligation at least that pressed upon me, my Essay for the R. S. L.,[139] and my _Aids to Reflection_, with other matters not so expressly my own, but having the same, if not greater, demands on such quantity of time, as bodily pain and disqualification, with unprecludible interruption, have enabled me to make use of, I take the _very_ first moment of the Furlough to tell you that I have been perplexed both by your silence and your absence. In fact, I had taken for granted you were in Derbyshire, till this afternoon, when I saw one who had met you yesterday.