125. Robert Southey to Thomas Southey [brother], 21 March [1795] ⁠* 

Saturday. March 21.

My dear Tom

Hot with walking & warm repentance I do sit me down to repair the apparent coolness of neglect. my dear brother when I have been writing as hard as is necessary to furnish two lectures a week an hour each in recitation, I have been tempted to fling all down & write to you. I am giving a course of historical Lectures at Bristol, teaching what is right by showing what is wrong.  [1]  my company of course is sought by all who love good Republicans & odd characters. Coleridge & I are daily engaged. & moreover my heart has engagements of a dearer nature which it knows not how to dispense with. for the future it shall come in the routine of my writing desk to write you every ten days & tell you how I go on.

my Joan of Arc goes to the press in about three weeks. a new letter is casting for it. it will be a most elegant volume & you shall receive one as soon as it is out. I shall publish another volume of Poems [2]  most probably before that will be printed. Cottle the Bookseller (who remembers you when he lived with Bulgin [3]  & often enquires for you) is to buy the copy right & they will be printed more elegantly than the last.

John Scott has got me a place of a guinea & half per week for writing in some new work called the Citizen. [4]  of what kind I know not save that it accords with my principles. of this I daily expect to hear more.

if Coleridge & I can get 150 pounds a year between us, we purpose marrying & retiring into the country as our literary business can be carried on there & practising agriculture till we can raise money for America — still the grand object in view.

So I have cut my cables & am drifting on the ocean of life — the wind is fair & the port of happiness I hope, in view.

tis possible that I may be called on to publish my historical Lectures: this I shall be unwilling to do, as they are only splendid declamation. you will however receive whatever I or Coleridge publish, as soon as it is out.

We expect your parcel to night — I shall revere the republican hanger.

my notoriety will not tend to reconcile my Aunt to me. public speaking is awkward at first — but three lectures have accustomed me to it.

my mornings are devoted to hard study. my evenings always engaged — & I generally contrive to pass them with my dear Edith.

I walked over to Bath this afternoon. a good citizen [5]  is now expecting me at the Greyhound.

direct to me at Mrs Sawiers. 25 College Street Bristol. [6]  you shall hear from me regularly. America is the land of my wishes & we shall all there all be happy there

fare you well

yr affectionate brother

Robert Southey.

Coleridge would send fraternity were he here. he is my fellow with me — we live together & write together.