3830. Robert Southey to [John May], 22 April 1822
Endorsement: No. 226. 1822/ Robert Southey/ – 22d April/ recd.
26th do./ ansd. 25th May
MS: Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas, Austin. ALS; 2p.
Previously published: Charles Ramos (ed.), The Letters of Robert Southey to John May: 1797–1838 (Austin, Texas, 1976), p. 194.
We shall be very glad to see your son with you, & should be more so if we had a bed to offer him.
But in all likelihood it will be easy to get him one at the bottom of the garden, – & if not, one of the Inns is within five minutes walk.
There are two Carlisle mails, & he who takes the wrong one has to spend three hours at midnight in a Manchester Inn, the worst place on this side Purgatory. The right one is that from the Bull & Mouth, which goes thro Doncaster. You must take your place to Penrith, which is 18 miles from hence: & You will be here in 41 hours from London. – When I am once settled in the coach I think nothing of the journey. I should look forward to this meeting with unmingled pleasure if you could come without a load of cares, & if you could make a longer tarriance. As it is I look to it with great delight, & not without hope that things will have brightened by that time (as they are not darkening now) & that you will find your spirits freshened by the visit.
Your God-daughter goes, I believe, this week to Harrogate. We shall miss her much, – but I am very glad that there is an opportunity of sending her there.
I hope I shall be near the end of my first volume by the time you come.
indeed it is time I should, because of its length, – & there is little but plain sailing before me. – Something it will enable me to place at your disposal – I heartily wish it were more.
I have a great deal to show you, & a great deal to say –
God bless you
yrs affectionately
RS.
22 Apr. 1822.
