MS location unknown. Printed in Coleridge, Life 308-9
My dear Lizzie
Beatrice Morshead wrote to me on Saturday, so that I had her letter at the same time as yours. I had heard from Miss Bourne the day before this change.1 Beatrice’s letter seemed as if there was a little more revival, and it seems now to be possible that there may be more vitality even now than we thought. But one cannot wish for aught but rest. There was something so sad in the way she said, after being with her doctor last time I was there, ‘I think he was sorry for me.’ Yes, she has been one of the great influences of my life (I am sure I have been a ‘companion of saints,’ whatever I am myself, something I fear much more like ‘him who lacks the martyr’s heart’)2 The first time I saw her in the garden at the Nest has been one of the landmarks of my life; and next to my father and Mr. Keble, she turned the course of my mind. What numbers would say the same of her in different degrees. I think she will bring her sheaves with her.3
Your most affectionate
C. M. Y.