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Bodleian Library, MS Eng Lett. d. 111. Previously published: John Wood Warter (ed.), Selections From the Letters of Robert Southey, 4 vols (London, 1856), I, pp. 44–45.
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.
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You will be somewhat surprized to hear that we are about to remove from Burton, & take up our abode with my Mother for the residue of my reprieve from London. for this I had a strong motive independant of my Mothers wish, & the inclination I feel to be near a few Bristol friends. I want access to books which I can neither buy or borrow, & which are almost necessary to elucidate my second edition. Lloyd accompanies us. he will be a boarder at my mothers. But I shall leave Burton with regret. I begin to take root here, — novelty is to me less a source of delight, than the kind of friendship which I contract with scenery that has interested me repeatedly, & awakened those emotions which defy expression, & which are almost too subtle for Remembrance to retain.
I almost wish that I believed tho in the local divinities of the Pagans — but without
becoming a pagan or a fool. we may allow Imagination to people the air with intelligent spirits, & animate every herb with
sensation, for wherever there is the possibility of happiness, infinite Power & infinite Benevolence will produce it. the belief of
a creating Intelligence is to me a feeling like that of my own existence, an intuitive truth: it were as easy to open my eyes & not
see, as to meditate upon this subject & not believe. I know not whether you can follow associations that appear so unconnected upon
paper but the recollection of scenery that I love recalls to me those theistic feelings which the beauties of Nature are best fitted to
awaken. the hill & the grove would be to me holier places than the temple of Solomon; man cannot pile up the quarried rock with mxxx xxxx to equal its original grandeur, & the cedar of Lebanon loses all its beauties when
hewn into a beam.
My mother is much better since her arrival here. it is somewhat hard that they
who wish only for quietness in the world, cannot attain to it. Anxieties warp the mind as well as
destroy the health, & too frequently misery in this world seems only to render the soul less fit
for another.
I ought to congratulate you upon the addition to your family. I should do it with more pleasure were it tx on your own account, for tho the wise man, in a period like this, would perhaps keep himself wholly
without a tie, I do not wish either myself or my friends that cold wisdom. I have no idea of single blessedness. if a man goes thro
life without meeting one with whom he could be happy, I should think strangely ill of him — he wants the capability of happiness —
& if he has not the pumpkin-head, must have the pippin-heart. young men are sad cattle now — & when I reflect how they are
educated it appears wonderful that they are not worse. young women are somewhat better — that is they are more to be despised than
detested. domestic happiness is a rare jewel — & thank God I have found it.
Lloyd & my brother set
off for the Isle of Wight the morning after you left us. we think of removing about Thursday next. Edith accompanies Tom & my Mother, I & Lloyd
shall walk — & we mean to make a pilgrimage to Stonehenge on the way. direct your next to 8.
Westgate Buildings Bath. I have laboured hard at revising Joan of Arc since you were here, & with success I think.
Froissart
God bless you.