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Victoria and Albert Museum, National Art Library Manuscripts, MS Forster 48 D.32 MS 6. Previously published: Charles Cuthbert Southey (ed.), Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey, 6 vols (London, 1849–1850), III, pp. 228–231 [misdated 23 April].
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 shall send three Sections of Kehamath of last month; a few days after the birth her
mother was taken ill with an attack of dysentery, & for some time there was cause of serious alarm. This God be thanked is
over. The night before last we had another alarm of the worst-kind, tho happily this also is passing away. My little boy went to bed with some slight indications of a trifling cold. His mother went up to look at him before supper, – she thought he coughed in a strange manner, –
called me, – & I instantly recognized the sound of the croop. We have a good apothecary within three minutes walk & luckily he was at home. He immediately confirmed our fears, – the child was taken
out of bed & bled in the jugular vein, – a blister placed on the throat next morning, & by these rigorous & timely
remedies, we hope & trust the disease is subdued. But what a twelve-hours did we pass, knowing the nature of the disease & only
hoping the efficacy of the remedy. – Even now I am far – very far from being at ease. There is a love which passeth the love of
women,
Landor I am not a Stoic at home. – I feel as you do about the fall of an
old tree – but O Christ what a pang it is to look upon the young shoot & think it will be cut down! – And this is the thought which
almost all at all times haunts me, – it comes upon me in moments when I know not whether the tears that start are of love or
of bitterness. There is an evil too in seeing all things like a poet, – circumstances which would glide over a healthier mind, sink
into mine, – every thing comes <to> me with its whole force, & xxx – the full meaning of a look – a gesture, a
childs imperfect speech, I can perceive & cannot help perceiving, – & thus am I made to remember what I would give the world to
forget.
Enough & too much of this. The xxx The leaven of anxiety is working in my whole system, – I will try to
quieten it by forcing myself to some other subject.
What prevented Gebirthat they did not find meaning enough upon the surface to make them fancy they understood
it. Why should you not write xxx a poem as good & more intelligible, & display the same powers upon a happier
subject? Yet certain it is that Gebir excited far more attention than you seem to be aware of. Two manifest imitations have appeared –
Rough’s play of the Conspiracy of Gowrie,the his Baviad.
I once past an evening with Professor Younganatomize every thing, – to understand or fancy they understand whatever comes
before them, that they fre most frequently become mere materialists, account for every thing by mechanism & motion,
& would put out of the world all that makes the world endurable – I do not undervalue their knowledge nor the utility of their
discoveries, – but I do not like the men. My own nature requires something more than they teach, – it pants after things unseen, it
exists upon the hope of that better futurity which all its aspirations promise & seem to prove. God knows I do not begin to be
aweary of the sun,