You have writ me many kind letters, and I have answered none of them.  I don’t deserve your attentions.  An unnatural indifference has been creeping on me since my last misfortunes, or I should have seized the first opening of a correspondence with you.  To you I owe much under God.  In my brief acquaintance with you in London, your conversations won me to the better cause, and rescued me from the polluting spirit of the world.  I might have been a worthless character without you; as it is, I do possess a certain improvable portion of devotional feelings, though when I view myself in the light of divine truth, and not according to the common measures of human judgment.  I am altogether corrupt and sinful.  This is no cant.  I am very sincere.

These last afflictions, [1] Coleridge, have failed to soften and bend my will.  They found me unprepared.  My former calamities produced in me a spirit of humility and a spirit of prayer.  I thought they had sufficiently disciplined me; but the event ought to humble me.  If God’s judgments now fail to take away from the the heart of stone, what more grievous trials ought I not to expect?  I have been very querulous, impatient under the rod, full of little jealousies and heartburnings.  I had wellnigh quarrelled with Charles Lloyd, and for no other reason, I believe, than that the good creature did all he could to make me happy.  The truth is, I thought he tried to force my mind from its natural and proper bent:  he continually wished me to be from home; he was drawing me from the consideration of my poor dear Mary’s situation, rather than assisting me to gain a proper view of it with religious consolations.  I wanted to be left to the tendency of my own mind in a solitary state which, in times past, I knew had led to quietness and a patient bearing of the yoke.  He was hurt that I was not more constantly with him; but he was living with White,—­a man to whom I had never been accustomed to impart my dearest feelings; though from long habits of friendliness, and many a social and good quality, I loved him very much, I met company there sometimes,—­indiscriminate company.  Any society almost, when I am in affliction, is sorely painful to me.  I seem to breathe more freely, to think more collectedly, to feel more properly and calmly, when alone.  All these things the good creature did with the kindest intentions in the world, but they produced in me nothing but soreness and discontent.  I became, as he complained, “jaundiced” towards him....  But he has forgiven me; and his smile, I hope, will draw all such humors from me.  I am recovering, God be praised for it, a healthiness of mind, something like calmness; but I want more religion, I am jealous of human helps and leaning-places.  I rejoice in your good fortunes.  May God at the last settle you!  You have had many and painful trials; humanly speaking, they are going to end; but we should rather pray that discipline may attend us