BIB_ID
415043
Accession number
MA 1848.7
Creator
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 1772-1834.
Display Date
Cambridge, England, 1794 October 21.
Credit line
Purchased from Joanna Langlais, 1957.
Description
1 item (8 pages, with address) ; 45.2 x 29.2 and 22.4 x 18.5 cm
Notes
Coleridge gives the date of writing at the end of the letter as "Oct 21st." No year of writing is given, but 1794 is most likely based on the contents of the letter. See the published edition of the correspondence, cited below, for additional information.
Coleridge lists the place of writing as "Jes. Coll. Cambridge" on the eighth page of the letter, following a poem. Whether this is primarily connected to the poem or the letter is unclear, but it seems, on the whole, likely that this letter was written in Cambridge.
The first four lines of the sonnet Coleridge includes in this letter are cancelled, and four revised lines written in their place. Coleridge also lists two alternate words for lines 9 and 16 in the second poem included in the letter, "Much on my early Youth I love to dwell," and adds a small geometrical figure at the end of line 35.
This collection, MA 1848, is comprised of 92 letters from Samuel Taylor Coleridge to Robert Southey, written between 1794 and 1819. See the collection-level record for more information (MA 1848.1-92).
This letter is from the Joanna Langlais Collection, a large collection of letters written by Samuel Taylor Coleridge to various recipients. The collection has been divided into subsets, based primarily on Coleridge's addressees, and these sub-collections have been cataloged as MA 1848-1857.
Address panel: "Robert Southey / The large sheet is the / first Letter -- This your / second -- / What is become of the / Niemi Spirits?"
Coleridge lists the place of writing as "Jes. Coll. Cambridge" on the eighth page of the letter, following a poem. Whether this is primarily connected to the poem or the letter is unclear, but it seems, on the whole, likely that this letter was written in Cambridge.
The first four lines of the sonnet Coleridge includes in this letter are cancelled, and four revised lines written in their place. Coleridge also lists two alternate words for lines 9 and 16 in the second poem included in the letter, "Much on my early Youth I love to dwell," and adds a small geometrical figure at the end of line 35.
This collection, MA 1848, is comprised of 92 letters from Samuel Taylor Coleridge to Robert Southey, written between 1794 and 1819. See the collection-level record for more information (MA 1848.1-92).
This letter is from the Joanna Langlais Collection, a large collection of letters written by Samuel Taylor Coleridge to various recipients. The collection has been divided into subsets, based primarily on Coleridge's addressees, and these sub-collections have been cataloged as MA 1848-1857.
Address panel: "Robert Southey / The large sheet is the / first Letter -- This your / second -- / What is become of the / Niemi Spirits?"
Provenance
Purchased from Joanna Langlais in 1957 as a gift of the Fellows, with the special assistance of Mrs. W. Murray Crane, Mr. Homer D. Crotty, Mr. and Mrs. Donald F. Hyde, Mr. Robert H. Taylor and Mrs. Landon K. Thorne. Formerly in the possession of Ernest Hartley Coleridge and Thomas Burdett Money-Coutts, Baron Latymer.
Summary
Beginning "To you alone Southey! I write the first part of this letter -- to yourself confine it"; quoting at great length from a letter which he describes as unsigned, but written by Mary Evans, urging him not to go to America; giving Evans's arguments against the scheme: "You have a Country. Does it demand nothing of You? You have doting Friends. Will you break their Hearts? There is a God -- Coleridge! Though I have been told (indeed I do not believe it) that you doubt of his Existence and disbelieve a hereafter. -- No! You have too much Sensibility to be an Infidel. You know I never was rigid in my opinions concerning Religion -- and have always thought Faith to be only Reason applied to a particular Subject"; quoting Evans on how much she misses his company and how she does not form new friendships with either women or men easily: "I am the same Being as when you used to say -- We thought in all things alike"; quoting her begging him to not to write back, so that her family does not learn that she has written to him; saying that he received this letter about three weeks ago and writing of Evans "I loved her, Southey! almost to madness. Her Image was never absent from me for three years -- for more than three years. My Resolution has not faltered -- but I want a Comforter"; describing how he tried to distract himself by falling in love with Miss Brunton (see MA 1848.6), so that after she leaves he could transfer his affections to Sara Fricker, "whom I do not love -- but whom by every tie of Reason and Honor I ought to love"; explaining that in this state he could not write to Sara Fricker; saying that he was alarmed by Southey's letter and he does not agree with Southey's conventional and patronising ideas about the role that servants would play in Pantisocracy, referring particularly to Shadrach Weekes (see MA 1848.4): "I will most assuredly go with you to America on this Plan -- but remember, Southey! this is not our Plan -- and I cannot defend it"; recalling Pantisocracy's ideals, quoting Southey's words back to him and chiding him for them: "Is every Family to possess one of these Unequal Equals -- these Helot Egalité-s?"; discussing the implications of Southey's words for the feasibility of the scheme; discussing Southey's comments on childhood and motherhood; writing about the responsibilities that women and men will have in Pantisocracy: "If Mrs. S. & Mrs. F. go with us -- they can at least prepare the Food of Simplicity for us -- Let the married Women do only what is absolutely convenient and customary for pregnant Women or nurses -- Let the Husbands do all the Rest -- and what will that all be -- ? Washing with a Machine and cleaning the House. One Hour's addition to our daily Labour -- and Pantisocracy in it's most perfect sense is practicable"; adding further thoughts about how pregnancy will affect the community and the workload; expressing concern that "the Hearts of the Women are not all with us"; referring to William Godwin's work on justice, the relationship between it and Pantisocracy, and the difficulty of putting ideas about the greater good into practice: "It is not enough, that we have once swallowed it -- The Heart should have fed upon the truth, as Insects on a Leaf -- till it be tinged with the colour, and shew it's food in every fibre"; asking Southey's opinion about a possible war with America and how it might affect their travel plans; asking also about differing information they are receiving regarding land prices; including a sonnet beginning "Thou bleedest, my poor Heart! & thy Distress"; commenting "When a Man is unhappy, he writes damned bad Poetry, I find"; mentioning the difficulties he is having with the Imitations from the Modern Latin Poets project; sending praise and critiques of Southey's poetry, particularly "The Race of Banquo"; asking him to "Send me up an Elegy on the exiled Patriots and the Scripture Sonnets," to be published in the newspaper; advising Southey on how to discuss his plans to emigrate with his aunt Elizabeth Tyler; telling him what he has done with various copies of "The Fall of Robespierre"; detailing the sales so far, what the final printing expenses were, and what the critical reaction in Cambridge has been; saying that he gave a copy to Miss Brunton with a poem on a blank leaf; including the poem, which begins "Much on my early Youth I love to dwell"; writing that until he dated the letter, he hadn't remembered that the previous day was his birthday; saying that he has heard from his brothers, "from him particularly, who has been Friend, Brother, Father -- 'Twas all remonstrance, and Anguish, & suggestions that I am deranged!!"; asking Southey to write him a "letter of Consolation -- for believe me! I am most compleatly wretched --."
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