This collection, MA 1849, is comprised of forty-six autograph letters signed from Samuel Taylor Coleridge to his wife, Sara Coleridge, written between 1802 and 1824.
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 individually as MA 1848- MA 1857.
Address panel with postmarks and fragments of a seal "For England / Mrs. Coleridge / Keswick / Cumberland."
Expressing his distress at the letters he has written and those that were written to him that have been lost due to the loss of ships at sea; saying "No one not absent on a dreary island so many leagues of sea from England can conceive the effect of these Accidents on the Spirits & inmost soul / So help me Heaven! they have nearly broken my Heart / And added to this, I have been hoping and expecting to get away for England for 5 months past, and Mr. Chapman not arriving, Sir Alexander's Importunities have always overpowered me / tho' my gloom has encreased at each disappointment / I am determined however to go in less than a month / My office, as Public Secretary, the next civil dignity to the Governor, is a very very busy one / & not to involve myself in the responsibility of the Treasur[er] I have but half the Salary...Sir A. Ball is indeed exceedingly kind to me - The officers will be impatient / I would, I could write a more chearful account of my Health / all I can say is that I am better than I have been - and that I was very much better before so many circumstances of dejection happened / I should overset myself compleatly, if I ventured to mention a single name / How deeply I love / O God! - it is agony at morning & evening;" adding, in a postscript, his reaction to the news of John Wordsworth's death; saying "On being told abruptly by Lady Ball of John Wordsworth's fate I attempted to stagger out of the room (the great Saloon of the Palace with 50 people present) and before I could reach the door fell down on the ground in a convulsive hysteric Fit / - I was confined to my room for a fortnight after / and now I am afraid to open a letter / & I never dare ask a question of any newcomer. The night before last I was much affected by the sudden entrance of poor Reynell (our inmate at Stowey) - more of him in my next."