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MS untraced; text is taken from William Knight (ed.), Memorials of Coleorton, 2 vols (London, 1887) . Previously published: William Knight (ed.), Memorials of Coleorton: Being Letters from Coleridge, Wordsworth and his Sister, Southey, and Sir Walter Scott to Sir George and Lady Beaumont of Coleorton, Leicestershire, 1803 to 1834, 2 vols (London, 1887), II, pp. 184–187.
These letters were edited with the assistance of Ian Packer and Lynda Pratt
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…. notwithstanding the marvellous mildness of the season. Marvellous it may well be called. The summits of the mountains were free of snow till the last week in January; what had fallen before that time had never remained twelve hours. The valley has only been whitened once, and then only inch-deep, and for half a day, and the ground has never been hard frozen. We had a greater variety of flowers at Christmas than April in all likelihood will supply.
You are going to Switzerland, I hear, and though we shall miss you in the autumn, I am glad that you have determined
upon an excursion which will give you so much pleasure, and concerning which I shall have so much pleasure in talking with you.
Whatever route you may take, I hope you will not omit the ride from Meiringhen to Sarnen, the lake and valley of Lungern being
(Interlaken perhaps alone excepted) the loveliest scene which I remember in the country. And the little valleys
which you cross in passing the Brunig are the very perfection of pastoral scenery. But I am particularly desirous that you should see
the Flying Tree,—the most astonishing thing that I have ever seen, or ever expect to see.
I fear you will see our country with altered eyes when you return to it, though I can perfectly understand why it is in some respects more suited to a painter’s purposes. But Switzerland excels as much in beauty as in grandeur. I do not envy the magnitude of its mountains, for which far too great a price is paid, in the perpetual insecurity which they occasion (to say nothing of the foul waters which they produce), but there is a beauty in the softer scenery which may well be envied, and in the Alpine valleys a charm altogether peculiar. I am now remembering more particularly those which lie between Martigny and Chamouny.
Wordsworth may be congratulated upon coming off so well in
the Magazine.
I am drawing near the close of a long and most arduous labour. Five or six weeks hence I hope to finish my
Remember us most kindly to Lady Beaumont. The girls