I am sure, my dear Friend! that if aught can be a comfort to you in affliction or an addition to your joy in the hour of Thanksgiving, it will be to know, and to be reminded of your knowledge, that I feel as your own heart in all that concerns you. Next to this I have to tell you, that the Sea Air and the Sea Plunges, and the leisure of mind, with regular devotion of the Daylight to exercise (for I write only after tea), have been auspicious, beyond my best hopes, to my health and spirits. The change in my looks is beyond the present reality, but may be veracious as _prophecy_, though somewhat exaggerating as _history_. The same in all essentials holds good of Mrs. Gillman; and I am most pleased that the improvement in her looks and strength has been gradual though rapid. First she got rid, in the course of four or five days, of the _Positives_ of the wrong sort--_e.g._ the blackness under the eyes and the thinness of the cheeks--and now she is acquiring the Positives of the right kind, her eyes brightening, her face becoming plump, and a delicate, yet cool and steady colour, stealing upon her cheeks. Mr. Gillman too is uncommonly well since his second arrival here. The first week his arm, the absorbents of which had been perilously poisoned by opening a body, was a sad drawback, and prevented his bathing. In short, we are all better than we could have anticipated; and the better we are, the more I long, and we all wish you to be with us. If you _can_ come, though but for a few days, I pray you come to us. In grief or gladness, we shall grieve less, and (I need not say) be more glad, by seeing you, by having you with _us_. I will not say _write_, for I would a thousand times rather have you plump in on me, unannounced; but yet write, unless this be possible. We have an excellent house, with beds enough for half a dozen Allsops, if so many there were or could be, the situation the very best in all Ramsgate (Wellington Crescent, East Cliff, Ramsgate); and we, or rather Mrs. Gillman's voice and manner, procured it _shameful cheap_ for the size and accommodations. I am called to dinner; so God bless you, and receive all our loves, my very dear friend. S. T. COLERIDGE. T. Allsop, Esq. My birth-day, 51; or, as all my collegiates and Mrs. Coleridge swear, 50. * * * * * Coleridge was only forty-nine on 21st October 1821, not fifty-one as he supposes. He could never remember his birthday, nor the year in which he was born. LETTER 196. TO ALLSOP Ramsgate, Nov. 2nd, 1821. My dear Friend,