LETTER 216. TO ALLSOP

Saturday, May 2nd, 1825.

My dear Friend,

I am sure you did not mean that the interest I feel in this undertaking was one which I was likely to _throw_ off, or one which there was any chance of my not retaining; but I would fain have you not even speak or write below that line of friendship and mutual implicit reliance, on which you and I stand. We are in the world, and obliged to chafe and chaffer with it; _but we are not of the world, nor will we use its idioms or adopt its brogue_.

God bless you, and your affectionate Friend, S. T. COLERIDGE.

T. Allsop, Esq.