I will not disguise from you, my dearest nephew, that the first certain information of your having taken the "Quarterly"[198] gave me a pain, which it required all my confidence in the soundness of your judgement to counteract. I had long before by conversation with experienced barristers got rid of all apprehension of its being likely to injure you professionally. My fears were directed to the _invidiousness_ of the situation, it being the notion of publishers that without satire and sarcasm no review can obtain or keep up a sale. Perhaps pride had some concern in it. _For_ myself I have none, probably because I had time out of mind given it up as a lost cause, given myself over, I mean, a predestined author, though without a drop of true _author_ blood in my veins. But a pride in and for the name of my father's house I have, and those with whom I live know that it is never more than a dog-sleep, and apt to _start up_ on the slight alarms. Now, though very sillily, I felt pain at the notion of any _comparisons_ being drawn between _you_ (to whom with your sister my heart pulls the strongest) and Mr. Gifford, even though they should be [to] your advantage; and still more, the thought that ... Murray should be or hold himself entitled to have and express an opinion on the subject. The insolence of one of his proposals to me, viz., that he would publish an edition of my Poems, on the condition that a gentleman in his confidence (Mr. Milman![199] I understand) was to select, and make such omissions and corrections as should be thought advisable--this, which offered to myself excited only a smile in which there was nothing sardonic, might very possibly have rendered me sorer and more sensitive when I boded even an infinitesimal _ejusdem farinæ_ in connection with you.
But henceforward I shall look at the thing in a sunnier mood. Mr. Frere is strongly impressed with the importance and even dignity of the trust, and on the power you have of gradually giving a steadier and manlier tone to the feelings and principles of the higher classes. But I hope very soon to converse with you on this subject, as soon as I have finished my Essay for the Literary Society, (in which I flatter myself I have thrown some light on the passages in Herodotus respecting the derivation of the Greek Mythology from Egypt, and in what respect that paragraph respecting Homer and Hesiod is to be understood), and have, likewise, got my "Aids to Reflection" out of the Press. But I have more to do for the necessities of the day, and which are _Nos non nobis_, than I can well manage so as to go on with my own works, though I work from morning to night, as far as my health admits and the loss of my friendly amanuensis. For the slowness with which I get on with the pen in my own hand contrasts most strangely with the rapidity with which I dictate. Your kind letter of invitation did not reach me, but there was one which I ought to have answered long ago, which came while I was at Ramsgate. We have had a continued succession of illness in our family here, at one time six persons confined to their beds. I have been sadly afraid that we should lose Mrs. Gillman, who would be a loss indeed to the whole neighbourhood, young and old. But she seems, thank God! to recover strength, though slowly. As I hope to write again in a few days with my book, I shall now desire my cordial regards to Mrs. J. Coleridge, and with my affectionate love to the little ones.