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British Library, Add MS 30927. Previously published: John Wood Warter (ed.), Selections from the Letters of Robert Southey, 4 vols (London, 1856), I, pp. 398–401 [in part].
These letters were edited with the assistance of Carol Bolton, Tim Fulford and Ian Packer
For permission to publish the text of MSS in their possession, the editor wishes to thank the Beinecke Rare Books and Manuscript Library, Yale University; Berg Collection of English and American Literature, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations; the Bodleian Library Oxford University; the British Library; Boston Public Library; the Syndics of Cambridge University Library; the Syndics of the Fitzwilliam Museum Cambridge; Haverford College, Connecticut; the Historical Society of Pennsylvania; the Hornby Library, Liverpool Libraries and Information Services; the Houghton Library, Harvard University; the John Rylands Library, Manchester; the Kenneth Spencer Research Library, University of Kansas; Luton Museum (Bedfordshire County Council); Massachusetts Historical Society; McGill University Library; the National Library of Scotland; the Newberry Library, Chicago; the New York Public Library (Pforzheimer Collections); the Pierpont Morgan Library, New York; the Public Record Offices of Bedford, Suffolk (Bury St Edmunds) and Northumberland, the Master and Fellows of Trinity College, Cambridge; the Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle upon Tyne; the Trustees of the William Salt Library, Stafford, the Wisbech and Fenland Museum; the University of Virginia Library.
A research grant from the British Academy made much of the archival work possible, as did support from the English Department of Nottingham Trent University.
Any dashes occurring in line breaks have been removed.
Because of web browser variability, all hyphens have been typed on the U.S. keyboard.
Dashes have been rendered as a variable number of hyphens to give a more exact rendering of their length.
Southey’s spelling has not been regularized.
Writing in other hands appearing on these manuscripts has been indicated as such, the content recorded in brackets.
& has been used for the ampersand sign.
£ has been used for £, the pound sign
All other characters, those with accents, non-breaking spaces, etc., have been encoded in HTML entity decimals.
I promised to write by this post, & writing you see I am, tho how the letter is to be filled, unless the mail
brings me any tidings to communicate, is more than I can guess. The Doctors rascally hand writing indeed might easily enable me to do it, but it is more <as> provoking to
receive a sheet scrawled over with a mouthful of meaning than <as> to call for spruce beer when one is thirsty &
get a glass full of froth.
All Friday morning before you came from Brathay I devoted to the papers of
poor Henry White, – being too uncomfortable for any other employment.
Last night I thought of you at Bridgewater Arms,now be in the coach for a second nights journey. Tis a dismal distance! & heartily glad I shall be
to hear you are at the safe end of it.
The Quaker books from Kendal came <arrived> this morning – they will enable me to review Clarkson,done <finished> – then Palmerin
We miss you. your place in the room seems to want its occupier. I must put your box of water colours out of sight –
& send away the plate & teacup – still lying under the sideboard – which you used when colouring Barcia Hist.xx out of mind, but there is
something in having these things always in sight which is like being haunted. I have heard of men who when their wives have died
left the <suffer> every thing belonging to the dead precisely to remain precisely as she left
<left it> for years & years, – the music book open – the shawl thrown across the chair, – the fan or the parasol on the table
– & this till they died themselves. This is insanity, but one can understand how its nature & growth. If ever I
should become insane it will not be in this way – There is the same excuse for drunkenness & debauchery as for over–sensibility.
Twelve years ago I carried EpictetusI had my very heart was ingrained with it as a pigs bones are made red by feeding him upon madder. And the
longer I live, & the more I learn, the more am I convinced that Stoicism, properly understood, is the best & noblest system of
morals. If you have never read the book buy Mrs Carters translation of it whenever it comes in your way.
What a difference has one week made in this house. Nursexx Love-God &
be chearful as C. calls her. Coleridge & Job
gone – & now you also. I tell Mrs C & make her half angry by the name I
have given her,
Meaning her & the Heir to the Books. However we have a black cat come to us & every body says that is the
luckiest thing in the world. – You are gone at the wrong time. To day has been fine weather – it is the shortest day, & it is
always a joyful thing to turn the corner & begin lengthening time again. The col frost ought to be setting in, &
probably will, – we shall have the Lake frozen & I shall want a companion in my walks.
Bettyis a beauty – have I not reason to be vain?
You will of course write directly – I will hunt for Sarah Cottlesfor of us – or you
might learn it by enquiring at Mr Tuckers