Letter from Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Kendal, to Lady Beaumont, 1810 April 15 : autograph manuscript signed.

Saying he has no excuse for failing to reply to her letters but explaining that he was "Labouring under a depression of spirits, little less than absolute Despondency. It is so difficult to convey to another a state of feeling and it's accompaniments, which one believes and hopes that other has never experienced - I can only say, that one of the symptoms of this morbid state of the moral Being is an excessive sensibility and strange cowardice with regard to every thing that is likely to affect the Heart, or recall the consciousness to one's own self and particularly circumstances. Especially, in Letters. - A mere letter of Business or from an indifferent person is received and opened at once; but from any one loved or esteemed seems formidable in proportion to that very regard and affection;" describing his excuses for procrastinating in writing to her or to Sir George; confessing his sadness and fear of losing her respect and esteem; saying "Merely to lose your esteem would be as severe a punishment, as almost any thing external could inflict--but when I reflect on the possible Consequences of esteem so lost by me not only in the present case, but with regard to so many other friends treated disrespectfully in exact proportion to my actual Respect for them, its effect in at least weakening whatever I may write, or even what other better men may write, it is almost more than I can bear;" concluding that he will write more by his next post; adding, in a postscript, that this is not an answer to her last letter, but asking for permission "...to write as tho' nothing has happened, that is, as tho' I had read and answered the Letter at the moment - but the feeling, the recollection, will never die."