1585. Robert Southey to Walter Savage Landor, 21 February 1809 ⁠* 

Edith is recovering & my anxiety on that score is over. She has been very ill, & there was a great danger that the illness would bring on premature labour; – that danger however is past. In about six weeks I look to have another child. [1]  in opposition to ordinary notions & the purblind prudence of these selfish times I am persuaded that it is still a blessing to have a large family, notwithstanding modern policy contrives to unite an overcrowded state of society with a scanty population. Brothers & sisters help one another thro the world, – & die when I may it will be without any fears for the well doing of those whom I leave behind.

Your draft was put in circulation. – I believe Kehama would never have been resumed had it been not been for you. [2]  It had lain untouched for five years & so it probably would have remained. You stung me to the resolution of going on, & I am not sure whether the more pleasure which I have felt in proceeding has not been the anticipation of addressing it to you & saying so. – It is announced thro the customary channel of Magazines as in forwardness. I am going to Edinburgh in May for the purpose of hunting in the Advocates Library for any books which may relate to South America. While thus employed (a week or ten days at the utmost) I shall be Walter Scotts guest. Kehama will then (God willing) be compleated: & I think Scott will enable me to ascertain in what manner it may most advantageously be published. I sold the first edition of Thalaba to Longmans for 115 £. they printed 1000, – that edition is just now exhausted, & a second about to come forth [3]  – But this has been a slow sale, – & when seven years ago I offered them another poem on the same terms (meaning to have finished Kehama for the purpose) they demurred & offered only the 100. [4]  Just to the amount of defraying all expences my name commands a sale, every thing beyond that depends upon the caprice of a public, who have any better motive than caprice either for their censure or their approbation. Kehama however has cost me no expence of time, – I have fairly won it, as Lincolnshire speculators win estates from the sea; [5]  – my daily work has been done just as if no such composition was in my thoughts, without the slightest interruption. If therefore nothing be got by its sale, it has not made me the poorer, – I am so much the happier for having written it, – so much the richer as a Poet, & in fact have received from you half as much as the profits of an edition would be, when shared by a publisher. Its success (I speak solely of its market success) will only thus far influence me, that a good sale would make me afford more time for other such poems, which I should then publish as fast as they were written, – its still-birth (which I entirely expect) will merely make me write others as this is written, in the early morning hours, which I shall continue to do as long as the unabated power is in me, & leave them behind as post-obits for my children, in perfect confidence that such manuscripts will prove good & secure property hereafter. At Edinburgh I shall feel my way about the publication

When the obnoxious line was written I thought of better Painters than the Exhibitioners, – of those whose creative powers entitle them to be mentioned any where; – it is however an ugly word, – because it always reminds one of the house-painter. [6]  I set a black mark upon the line. Your remarks shall be well weighed, & every passage which I cannot [MS obscured]stify shall be altered. – Do not however be at the trouble of criticising the first portion which you received, – for that has been greatly altered since, by putting rhyming <most of> those parts whi[MS obscured] were rhymeless, – a task which is yet to be compleated.

Take your Letters to G Requelmi [7]  to Rickman, & he will get them franked for you. You will find a sound headed & sound hearted man, a sort of moral & intellectual Talus, fit to clear the way with his flail if we had a political Arthegal to regenerate us. [8] 

The first volume of my History of Brazil is in the press. [9]  After the manner of old history it will be plain, full & faithful. My last lucre-of-gain employment was a defence of the Baptist Mission in Bengal for the New Quarterly Review. [10]  I shall follow it with speculation upon the Missions in Polynesia & South Africa. [11]  I love to look search back into the past history of mankind, & to look on to their future destiny. The present is but a great drama where I feel rather as a spectator than one of the performers.

God bless you

RS.

Feb^y. 21. 1809.