in mind (strange to say) of my
little unknown friend, Undine--I must however say, further, that I felt
what Charles Lamb describes, a sense of depression at times from the
overshadowing of a so much more lofty intellect than my own: this (though
it may seem vain to say so) I never experienced before, though I have
often been with much greater intellects: but I could not be mistaken in
the universality of his mind; and perhaps I have received some benefit in
the now more distinct consciousness of my dwarfishness. I think that you
should keep all this to yourself, my dear Allen: I mean, that it is only
to you that I would write so freely about myself. You know most of my
secrets, and I am not afraid of entrusting even my vanities to so true a
man. . . .

Pray, do not forget to say how the Freestone party are. My heart jumped
to them, when I read in a guide book at Ambleside, that from Scawfell (a
mountain in Westmoreland) you could see Snowdon. Perhaps you will not
see the chain of ideas: but I suppose there was one, else I don't know
how it was that I tumbled, as it were, from the very summit of Scawfell,
upon the threshold of Freestone. The mind soon traverses Wales. I have
not been reading very much--(as if you ever expected that I did!)--but I
mean, not very much for me--some Dante, by the aid of a Dictionary: and
some Milton--and some Wordsworth--and some Selections from Jeremy Taylor,
Barrow, etc., compiled by Basil Montagu--of course you know the book: it
is published by Pickering. I do not think that it is very well done: but
it has served to delight, and, I think, to instruct me much. Do you know
South? He must be very great, I think. It seems to me that our old
Divines will hereafter be considered our Classics--(in Prose, I mean)--I
am not aware that any other nations have such books. A single selection
from Jeremy Taylor is fine: but it requires a skilful hand to put many
detached bits from him together: for a common editor only picks out the
flowery, metaphorical, morsels: and so rather cloys: and gives quite a
wrong estimate of the Author, to those who had no previous acquaintance
with him: for, rich as Taylor's illustrations, and grotesque as his
images, are, no one keeps a grander proportion: he never huddles
illustration upon the matter so as to overlay it, nor crowds images too
thick together: which these Selections might make one unacquainted with
him to suppose. This is always the fault of S