Dear Manning, -- I have received a very kind invitation from Lloyd and Sophia to go and spend a month with them at the Lakes. Now, it fortunately happens (which is so seldom the case) that I have spare cash by me enough to answer the expenses of so long a journey; and I am determined to get away from the office by some means.
The purpose of this letter is to request of you (my dear friend) that you will not take it unkind if I decline my proposed visit to Cambridge _for the present_. Perhaps I shall be able to take Cambridge _in my way_, going or coming. I need not describe to you the expectations which such an one as myself, pent up all my life in a dirty city, have formed of a tour to the Lakes. Consider Grasmere! Ambleside! Wordsworth! Coleridge! Hills, woods, lakes, and mountains, to the devil! I will eat snipes with thee, Thomas Manning. Only confess, confess, a _bite_.
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