1918. Robert Southey to Walter Savage Landor, 8 May 1811 ⁠* 

I give you joy very sincerely. [1]  No man can be thoroughly happy till he has a home, (– a mere house is not one,) & a family, whether it be his parents or his children, with whom he feels at rest, & in his proper place. To be at rest oneself, without either hope, wish, or desire beyond <what> the passing history of the human race ought to inspire, is my summum bonum, [2]  & this which by Gods blessing I have enjoyed for many years, I never could have attained while unmarried. There is a passage in the Confessions of S^t Augustine the truth of which any man who has a heart neither of the pumpkin nor the pippin class will recognize in the recollections of his own youth. “Nondum amabam, & amare amabam; quærebam quid amarem, amans amare.” [3]  – The very Welshmen will become more endurable if you take a wife to Llanthony.

Early in July I shall be at Bath. One of the best hearted & cleverest women whom I have ever known, is there at present with Sir Edward Littleton, to whom she has been as a daughter for many years. She is a very old friend of ours, & we must stay a few days with her on th our progress thro the South. I hope you will be at Bath at that time, & if not, – why you cannot be very far out of the road from Bristol to Keswick, – for it is one advantage of having so long a road way <road> to travel, that almost any part of England may be made in the way. I thought to have been at this time on my journey, & yet seem no nearer my departure than I was a month ago, so unmercifully does the business of 1809 grow under my hands. [4]  If it prove not a good volume, then will there have been a great deal of precious time mis employed, & a great deal of zealous labour thrown away.

You shall hear when I am in town that soon after I reach town some tidings of Count Julian, [5]  – for I think it is needless that you should prepare a more correct copy for Kembles [6]  perusal than that which I possess. It is best to treat such men with something like haughtiness, – that is to make them understand no favour is solicited – & that the obligation is quite as much on their part as on ours. I will tell him that the copy is incorrect, – & more than this, – that if he chuses to bring it forth, there will be a readiness on the authors part to adapt it for representation in such way as he may advise. If Kemble knows what is really excellent in dramatic composition (which really I doubt) – or if he knows what suits his own powers, which he most likely does, he will <ought to> jump at this play, – & the first hundred lines, or any single scene thro of the whole will determine him at once. I do not expect him to understand its excellence, – a man who can take as much pleasure in acting Zanga as King John cannot possibly have any real knowledge of Shakespere. [7] 

It vex vexed me that in your letter to Riquelme you should have spoken as you did of my poor friends the Portugueze. [8]  See how manfully they have acquitted themselves as soon as they had men at their head on whom they could rely, & a possibility appeared that their exertions might be successful. Surely all men are brave by nature, & when nations are cowardly the vice is wholly in the government. There will always be individual instances of cowardice; – but whenever it happens it is a physical infirmity, – not always superable by moral exertion. But I maintain that we as an animal man is naturally brave & that the men of all countries will make good soldiers if only they are well trained. Specific national qualities will still remain, – the Frenchman will march with most gaiety to the attack, the Spaniard will endure the greatest privations, – the Russian will stand the most quietly to have his skull hammered in with the butt end of a musket, & the Englishman will behave best in the field. My life for it we shall beat Buonaparte out of the Peninsula, & it will be our own fault if we do not dictate a px under the walls of Paris a peace of which the first article shall be that the French are never to have a ship of war. We must get them down, & down we must keep them.

Longman writes me that he has 109 copies of Kehama in his warehouse, & that he hopes these will sell by the time a small edition is xx ready. [9]  Accordingly I have written to Ballantyne to reprint, but to take his leisure about it, for there is no hurry. Madoc [10]  also is just gone again to press. In the 8^th Quarterly there is an article of mine upon Methodism [11]  which if I had been in the church would have been worth a rich benefice, so completely has it delighted Perceval. Have you seen Jeffrays criticism upon Kehama? [12]  it is quite as original as the poem, & altogether matchless f for impertinence.

God bless you

RS.

Keswick. May 8. 1811.