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Bodleian Library, MS Eng. Lett. d. 47. ALS; 4p. . Previously published: John Wood Warter (ed.), Selections from the Letters of Robert Southey, 4 vols (London, 1856), III, pp. 211–213 [in part].
These letters were edited with the assistance of Ian Packer and Lynda Pratt
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Your letters have troubled me; – & I should have replied to the first of them without delay, if I had not expected to receive the half notes – which I now acknowledge & thank you for.
If it were at a better season of the year, I should press you to make
for yourself as long a vacation as you could, & set off forthwith for Keswick, where I would answer for
putting you in good condition. But in the month of November, when the paths are
strewn with the fallen leaves, the roads ancle-deep in mire, & the glass
oscilating between Rain & Much Rain, & only getting up to Change, for the
sake of verifying its accuracy by falling back again, – this prescription is not
applicable. Make up your mind however, & your arrangements, – to come with the
Cuckoo,
My dear Grosvenor I am noways inclined to condemn you, as you seem to
imagine, – nor like the shoemaker whom we went to see in Richters picture, to
persuade you that the shoe fits, when you feel that it pinches.the <a>
fourth in your party. But as this cannot be, let me, I entreat you, converse as well
as we can, at a distance, & do not imagine yourself unfit for correspondence, or
suffer yourself to acquire a distaste for it. I have often, since my return from
London, been vexed, as well as disappointed, at not hearing from you as usual. Your
letters made up no small part of my enjoyments. You are my only frequent & constant correspondent. – The only
person with whom correspondence has become a habit, – with whom
I can be grave or nonsensical, to whom I can say quidlibet de
quolibet,
I have many things to tell you of my own occupations,
& anticipations & concerns, when you are willing to hear them.
At present it will suffice to say that we are all tolerably well, – & especially
your
godson, who calls himself Cupn, &
puts my Aunt Mary in
mind of what I was five & forty years ago. Nash who is on his way to town, has made an
excellent portrait of him, a tolerable miniature of my Poetship, – & a
double-miniature of Sara & Edith which you will
be much pleased with.
God bless you. Write me a few lines, at least, with the remaining half notes, – & when you send the 100, let it be in 20s & 10s.