BIB_ID
415103
Accession number
MA 1849.29
Creator
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 1772-1834.
Display Date
London, England, 1806 September 29.
Credit line
Purchased from Joanna Langlais, 1957.
Description
1 item (4 pages, with address) ; 24.5 x 20.0 cm
Notes
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 postmark to "Mrs. Coleridge / Mrs. Coleridge / Mrs. Cole / Keswick / Cumberland / on return from Malta."
Written on "Monday afternoon." Date of writing from published letter cited below.
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 postmark to "Mrs. Coleridge / Mrs. Coleridge / Mrs. Cole / Keswick / Cumberland / on return from Malta."
Written on "Monday afternoon." Date of writing from published letter cited below.
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
Explaining the reason for the delay in his expected departure from London; saying "...the American Captain, with unaccountable Delay & Breach of Promise has not sent my Books, & MSS - with other trifles - and if I go out of town without them, I am almost sure to lose them / which would be absolutely irreparable - Be assured, that to leave London is the strongest wish, of which a mind and body so enfeebled as mine, is capable - I intreat you not to be depressed or agitated by Delays, which I cannot avoid. Indeed, it has so much deranged my health, & disquieted my Sleep, that - unless I am to come to you with sick Stomach and swoln Limbs, I must stay on the Road...I cannot express to you, what a dreadful Damp your account of the Children's ages threw on my Spirits - I could scarcely breath [sic] for more than an Hour after. But may the Almighty look down on them, & make their years a blessing to them. I love them so, that I retire back from the sense of the exceeding love, I bear them, like a coward - I seem to myself too weak to bear the burthen of my own Heart. But let me hope that the evils of Life are passing off - and that I shall have blue Sky in among the moving Clouds;" adding that he wishes he could tell her when he is arriving in Keswick but "Be assured, nothing will detain me even an hour short of ill-consequences that would cast a gloom over my arrival. For however declining I may feel myself within, I very much wish to present an outward appearance of Health & Strength... Let me entreat you, my dear Wife! again and again not to fret yourself at these delays more than you can help. If the Books were not absolutely necessary to me, I should leave the business to C. Lamb - altho' I could not even then do it with prudence, for Charles is a very bad negociator, and an impatient Commissary;" sending his love to Mr. Jackson and Mrs. Wilson.
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