Writing to a friend, he says:  ’I feel myself in so many respects unworthy of your love, and too likely to become more so.’ (This was in 1844.) ’Worldly-minded I am not; on the contrary, my wish to benefit those within my humble sphere strengthens seemingly in exact proportion to my inability to realise those wishes.  What I lament most is, that the spirituality of my nature does not expand and rise the nearer I approach the grave, as yours does, and as it fares with my beloved partner.  The pleasure which I derive from God’s works in His visible creation is not with me, I think, impaired, but reading does not interest me as it used to do, and I feel that I am becoming daily a less instructive companion to others.  Excuse this egotism.  I feel it necessary to your understanding what I am, and how little you would gain by habitual intercourse with me, however greatly I might benefit from intercourse with you.’[223]

153. Hopefulness.

Writing to a friend at a time of public excitement, he thus speaks:  ’After all (as an excellent Bishop of the Scotch Church said to a friendly correspondent of mine), “Be of good heart; the affairs of the world will be conducted as heretofore,—­by the foolishness of man and the wisdom of God."’[224]

[223] Memoirs, ii. 502-3.

[224] Ibid. ii. 503.

III.  CONVERSATIONS AND PERSONAL REMINISCENCES OF WORDSWORTH.

(a) FROM ‘SATYRANE’S LETTERS:’  KLOPSTOCK.

(b) PERSONAL REMINISCENCES OF THE HON.  MR. JUSTICE COLERIDGE.

(c) RECOLLECTIONS OF A TOUR IN ITALY, BY H.C.  ROBINSON.

(d) REMINISCENCES OF LADY RICHARDSON AND MRS. DAVY.

(e) CONVERSATIONS AND REMINISCENCES RECORDED BY THE BISHOP OF LINCOLN.

(f) REMINISCENCES OF REV.  R.P.  GRAVES, M.A., DUBLIN.

(g) ON DEATH OF COLERIDGE.

(h) FURTHER REMINISCENCES AND MEMORABILIA, BY REV.  R.P.  GRAVES, M.A., DUBLIN, NOW FIRST PUBLISHED.

(i) AN AMERICAN’S REMINISCENCES.

(j) RECOLLECTIONS OF AUBREY DE VERE, ESQ., NOW FIRST PUBLISHED.

(k) FROM ‘RECOLLECTIONS OF THE LAST DAYS OF SHELLEY AND BYRON,’ BY E.J.  TRELAWNY, ESQ.

(l) FROM LETTERS OF PROFESSOR TAYLER (1872).

(m) ANECDOTE OF CRABBE, FROM DIARY OF SIR WALTER SCOTT.

(n) WORDSWORTH’S LATER OPINION OF LORD BROUGHAM.

NOTE.

On these ‘Personal Reminiscences’ see the Preface in Vol.  I. G.

(a) KLOPSTOCK:  NOTES OF HIS CONVERSATION.

From ‘Satyrane’s Letters’ (Biographia Literaria, vol. ii. pp. 228-254, ed. 1847).

Ratzeburg.