Henry Crabb Robinson, [London], to Mary Wordsworth, [Rydal Mount], [5 November 1853].

[Nov. 5 1853]

Saturday

My dear friend

     I have found the letter which I send you And I am now going to answer it, merely giving the hour of the train’s starting from hence, that is, London

     You ought but will not perhaps any more than I am, be as sorry as we all ought to be that the loss I so much deplored yesterday was much more severe than I expected viz <–> the loss of my mental power of attention

     During the three hours of fretting yesterday the keys were in my pantaloon fob pocket!!!

     Express better than I can myself my sense of Mrs Hoares very obliging attentions to me –

     And now till 11 a.m. Monday at the Eastern Counties Station Monday a.m.

                             affectionately yours

                                             H. C. R.

Text: WLL, Robinson, Henry Crabb/28, Wordsworth Trust and Museum, Grasmere.  Robinson mentions his mental lapse in his diary entry on 5 November 1853: ‘After a night dreaming of Keys & losses &c I slept most comfortably on my spring mattress – And this morning when Peto [Robinson’s housekeeper] came for my things And I was sulking abot this strange loss he exclaimed in a joyous tone – Why here they are Sir – Pulling them out of the fob-pocket of the trowsers I had on durg most of the time I was in trouble And I can only thus accot for it I must have put them in when I was preparg to go out in the afternoon And was prevented as stated above –A sad application of the saying of Lord Orford There is no use of curing a man of his folly if you cannot cure him of being foolish – And yet I rejoice now at beg relived from the particular inconvenience – tho the cause is incurable. ... I wrote to Mrs Robertson apart and to my brother – informg her of my intended journey to Ipswich by Rail tomorrow of which I also informed Mrs Clarkson – And I wrote to Wordsworth And I wrote to Dr King –’