4188. Robert Southey to Edith May Southey, 17 May 1824
Address: Not to be opened till the/ Letter has been read, on pain/ of excommunication, & my heaviest/ displeasure
MS: British Library, Add MS 47888. ALS; 9p.
Previously published: John Wood Warter (ed.), Selections from the Letters of Robert Southey, 4 vols (London, 1856), III, pp. 417–424.
Note on MS: The letter survives in three versions, two in Southey’s hand. Our copy text is taken from the version Southey sent to Edith May, now British Library, Add MS 47888. A second autograph, fair copy version, with variants from the British Library text, is in Bristol Reference Library, MS B19266. A third copy in another hand (probably Edith May’s) is held by Keswick Museum and Art Gallery (KESMG 192/ WC 243) and was possibly made from the original letter sent to Edith May (now Add MS 47888). The version in Add MS 47888 was originally accompanied by an enclosure that gave the punch line to the extended joke. The enclosure contained a small picture of a heraldic lion, salient, facing left, in a wrapper on which was written ‘Not to be opened till the Letter has been read, on pain of excommunication, & my heaviest displeasure.’ The wrapper remains with the manuscript but the enclosure has been lost. The fair copy at Bristol Record Office lacks the enclosure and the wrapper. However, the version at Keswick includes a copy of the enclosure and its wrapper.
I have found one! I have found one! I did not think there had been such a thing in the world, but I have actually found one. Incredible as it may appear, what I say is literally & strictly true. You should have been here to have seen the <discovery>. I wish you had. <And so we all wished, Kate & Isabel, & your Cousin Sara. And we wished for Bertha too, for Bertha would have enjoyed it. She has often heard of it, but how it would have surprized her to have seen it!>
– You are dying with impatience by this time to know all about it. – What it was? where it was? when it was? how it was? And you shall hear all; but we must adxxxx <proceed> methodically, lest your pleasure should be spoilt by xxx an abrupt & hurried disclosure. To do this properly requires some consideration, & whether to begin with the What, or the Where, or the When, or the How, is a matter of critical difficulty upon which more depends than any person can well understand who has never composed a book.
It has been a received maxim since the days of Horace that an Epic Poem should begin in the middle:
tho I deny the maxim, & have not observed it: believing that like the propriety of that rule, like most others xxxxxx depends in a degree <very much> upon circumstances. How to begin indeed is the great difficulty in many cases; in the present I am inclined to think that postponing the Quidship, & letting the Quomodoship follow the Ubiship, the matter may best be introduced by answering the question Quando.
When was it then? Quando?
This morning <day>, I answer, May the 17th. 1824, at ten o clock in the fore noon.
Now for the Whereness. Ubi? Where was it?
A simple answer will not suffice to this – for this Ubi hath a double relation. And when in reply to its first & more general meaning I tell you it was in the Study, – the question still remains to be answered in its <second &> special bearing. I then say – it was in the first volume of the Monumenta Boica.
My dear daughter you know that book, & yet <you> do not know it. I must therefore enable you to recollect it, for it is necessary to the full enjoyment of any story that you should understand it perfectly as you go on; & I dare say you have felt this at the Opera. You have had the Monumenta Boica in your hand, & made use of some of the volumes, – but I doubt whether you ever looked at the title page. You may call it to mind perhaps, when I tell you where they stand in the Library. – In the bookcase which is between the windows, – on the top shelf, – fourteen volumes, 7 on one side of the division, 7 on the other. You collected a few minor monsters there <from it> for the Tea Caddy. It would be an instructive story were I tell you how I saw this book at Verbeysts
on my first visit to Brussels, & did not buy it, & repented not having bought it for two years, till I went to Brussels again & did what can very seldom be done – repaired my <a> fault of omission, – by buying it, & if I xxxxxx <might also> explain to you what the book is, & wherein its value consists, & why I find it singularly useful, & how many curious things I have found in it, & am finding, xpx; but interesting as this would be in itself, it would be improper to introduce it here; because you are impatient to know what it was that I found there this morning, & I know how impertinent any thing appears in a story, which is not essential to its progress, when curiosity is all agog, <& a magog>
– as yours is at this time – So we will proceed to the How it was, without any delay, <let, hindrance> impediment, ambagiosity, or needless & superfluous roundabout forms of speech. But plainly & briefly replying to the question Quomodo?
As thus, I was showing Cuthbert the pictures in the first volume, upon which I had been employed before breakfast, & there I found it.
And now in due order comes the Quiddity, the cream – the kernel – the essence, or quintessence. What was it? Quid? Quid Diabolus?
I defy Diabolus himself to guess.
Something it was of which you have heard your Aunt Coleridge speak, but which till this day I verily thought had not existed either in Heaven above, nor in the Earth beneath, nor in the Waters which are under the earth.
It was not Moko.
It was not Jilkikker.
It was not Goarum. – It was not a detested Hinder.
But It was – my dear Edith, guess what it was. I have not defied you to guess, tho I have defied Diabolus.
Here it is! I exclaimed, & rising from my chair with delight carried it to your Mother who was at the other end of the room – here it is – I cried, look at it! – She did look at it – she smiled, & she said – there it is indeed! Who would have thought of seeing it! It really is one.
Where is Mrs Coleridge I exclaimed? Where is Mrs Coleridge? And Cuthbert seeing how I was pleased clapt his little hands for joy.
I opened the door, went into the passage, & said Mrs Coleridge? Where is Mrs Coleridge?
She was in her room, & answered hastily here I am – What do you want?
I had spoken in a loud voice, that it might be heard down stairs, or in the Saints Room,
if in either place she had happened to be: but certainly not in a tone of alarm. Alarmed nevertheless she was, & I, innocent as I was, – yea in this case more than innocent, – deserving far other treatment, my whole & sole intent having been to give pleasure, – I, poor I, innocent I, meritorious I – received a severe reprimand for frightening her, & affecting her nerves.
But I bore it meekly as Job, & more cheerfully. That I was more cheerful than the Man of Uz
was natural; considering for he was in a sorrowful condition, but that I should have been equally meek should be accounted to my honour. And when you teach your children (should you have any) that string of scriptural questions in which it is asked Who was the most patient man? I think you should <ought to> ask xx it in the plural <or rather in the dual> form, & teach the little ones to reply Job & their Grandfather Southey.
Let me if I can describe the various expressions that passed xx <on> this xxxxful <memorable> occasion over your Aunts countenance, in rapid succession, so rapid indeed, that the one came on before the other had departed, & so they mingled with & modified each other in a manner unutterable (I fear) by words, & inconceivable to any but those who are well acquainted with the personage in question. First then it was an expression of dolorous alarm, such as Le Brun ought to have painted,
but such as Manning
never could have equalled when while Mrs Lloyd was keeping her room in child bed, he & Charles Lamb sate drinking punch till three in the morning, Manning acting Le Bruns passion, xxxthx <being> punchified at the time) & Lamb <(punchified also) roaring aloud &> swearing while the tears ran down his cheeks, that it required more genius that ever Shakespere possessed to personate them so well, – Charles Lloyd the while (not punchified) praying & entreating them to go to bed, & not disturb his wife by the noise <uproar> they were making.
But when she perceived by my countenance & manner that no misfortune had befallen & that her alarm was altogether groundless, & unwarrantable, that alarm was succeeded by a yet more groundless & unwarrantable anger, & then the expression became that of indignation Then it was that the eyes lightened & the tongue thundered & the cataracts of wrath were opened upon my devoted head, – & I – if I had not been Integer vitae scelerisque purus
how could I have endured the storm!
Strong in my innocence I endured it; xx under the protection of conscious virtue, as of an umbrella, I bore the pelting of that pitiless storm. And when the first gleam of better weather appeared in a corner of the countenance, I held forth the book & said – I have found one! here it is! Look at it!
The cloud was still hanging on her brow, there was yet a lowering & lurid aspect <there> from which another peal of thunder might have proceeded, – but impatience xxx was now passing into tx curiosity – (an passion <emotion> nearly allied to it,) & the corners of the mouth which had been curved downward gradually returned to their proper line. What is it? What is it? she said. Let me see! Perhaps <that> Let should be spelt with a double t thus Lett, that the emphasis xxxx with which it was uttered might be made visible – Lett me see! – There was still an angry, as well as a curious impatience in the quick & hurried pronunciation. But
Last came joys extatic trial – (13)
When I told her what it was, the face brightened into an expression of scornful incredulity, & the corners of the mouth curved upward in an incipient smile; which ripened into a short, loud & honest ha-ha laugh, as I displayed the book, & she saw that it really was what I had said it was, – what she had so often spoken of, & what she had never expected to see, nor even dreamt of seeing. Blessed be the Herald that emblazoned it! Blessed be the Counts of Rot in Bavaria who bore it! Little did that Herald, little <did> those Counts think what delight it would occasion at Greta Hall, in the town of Keswick & parish of Crossthwaite & Ward of Allerdale below Derwent, County of Cumberland Kingdom of England & Island of Great Britain. Little did the humble Engraver who engraved the plate, & in his humility did not mark it with his modest name (a name which should otherwise have now been recorded here) little did he, – little the Academy of Sciences at Munich who published the book, – little did they think that on Monday the 17th day of May 1824 we should here discover in it what till then had always ben deemed undiscoverable, – & that a young Lady, at No 16 York Place, Baker Street, Portman Square London, would be kept on the rack of impatience while she read thro two whole sheets of letter-paper in no easy hand-writing, – dying the while with curiosity to know what it was.
It was, – it was, – Yes it was – quod xxxx Dixxxxxxxx x xxxxxx xxxxx – It was –
A L ——
But it is a discovery which ought to enter at the eyes as well as the ears, & therefore you shall see as well as read what it was in the inclosed paper, the seal of which must not be broken, on pain of excommunication, till the letter hath been fairly read to this point. There you will find a L -
& so farewell
from your dutiful father
RS.
