You are very good in sending one letter after another to inquire after a person so undeserving of attentions of this kind as myself.  Dr. Johnson, I think, observes, or rather is made to observe by some of his biographers, that no man delights to give what he is accustomed to sell.  ’For example:  you, Mr. Thrale, would rather part with anything in this way than your porter.’  Now, though I have never been much of a salesman in matters of literature (the whole of my returns—­I do not say net profits, but returns—­from the writing trade, not amounting to seven score pounds), yet, somehow or other, I manufacture a letter, and part with it as reluctantly as if it were really a thing of price.  But, to drop the comparison, I have so much to do with writing, in the way of labour and profession, that it is difficult to me to conceive how anybody can take up a pen but from constraint.  My writing-desk is to me a place of punishment; and, as my penmanship sufficiently testifies.  I always bend over it with some degree of impatience.  All this is said that you may know the real cause of my silence, and not ascribe it in any degree to slight or forgetfulness on my part, or an insensibility to your worth and the value of your friendship....  As to my occupations, they look little at the present age; but I live in hope of leaving something behind me that by some minds will be valued.

I see no new books except by the merest accident.  Of course your poem, which I should have been pleased to read, has not found its way to me.  You inquire about old books:  you might almost as well have asked for my teeth as for any of mine.  The only modern books that I read are those of Travels, or such as relate to matters of fact; and the only modern books that I care for; but as to old ones, I am like yourself—­scarcely anything comes amiss to me.  The little time I have to spare—­the very little, I may say—­all goes that way.  If, however, in the line of your profession you want any bulky old Commentaries on the Scriptures (such as not twelve strong men of these degenerate days will venture—­I do not say to read, but to lift), I can, perhaps, as a special favour, accommodate you.

I and mine will be happy to see you and yours here or anywhere; but I am sorry the time you talk of is so distant:  a year and a half is a long time looking forward, though looking back ten times as much is as brief as a dream.  My writing is wholly illegible—­at least I fear so; I had better, therefore, release you.

Believe me, my dear Wrangham,
Your affectionate friend,
W. WORDSWORTH.[95]

59. Poems of Edward Moxon.

LETTER TO MOXON.

(Postmark) Dec. 8. 1826.

DEAR SIR,

It is some time since I received your little volume, for which I now return you my thanks, and also for the obliging letter that accompanied it.