BIB_ID
415393
Accession number
MA 1848.49
Creator
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 1772-1834.
Display Date
Keswick, England, 1802 December 25.
Credit line
Purchased from Joanna Langlais, 1957.
Description
1 item (3 pages, with address) ; 23.2 x 19 cm
Notes
Coleridge lists the date of writing as "Christmas Day, 1802."
No place of writing is given, but based on the contents of the letter and its Keswick postmark, it was clearly written in Keswick. See the published edition of the correspondence, cited below, for additional information.
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 with seal and postmarks: "Robert Southey Esqre / St James's Place / Kingsdown / Bristol."
No place of writing is given, but based on the contents of the letter and its Keswick postmark, it was clearly written in Keswick. See the published edition of the correspondence, cited below, for additional information.
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 with seal and postmarks: "Robert Southey Esqre / St James's Place / Kingsdown / Bristol."
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
Saying that he arrived at Keswick with Thomas Wedgwood on Friday and found that Sara had given birth the day before to "a healthy -- Girl! I had never thought of a Girl as a possible event -- the word[s] child & man child were perfect Synonimes in my feelings -- however I bore the sex with great Fortitude -- & she shall be called Sara. Both Mrs. Coleridge & the Coleridgiella are as well as can be -- I left the little one sucking at a great rate"; mentioning that Derwent and Hartley are also well; saying that he had hoped to see Southey and his family in Cote in November, but he ended up staying there only one night; asking Southey to apologize to Estlin, who had "expressed himself wounded by the circumstance" of Coleridge and Wedgwood leaving without seeing him; saying that Sara's account of Southey's health and his eyes affected him greatly: "God have mercy on us! -- We are all sick, all mad, all slaves! -- It is a theory of mine that Virtue & Genius are Diseases of the Hypochondriacal & Scrofulous -- & exist in a peculiar state of the Nerves, & diseased Digestion -- analogous to the beautiful Diseases, that colour & variegate certain Trees. -- However, I add by way of comfort, that it is my Faith that the Virtue & Genius produce the Disease, not the Disease the Virtue &c -- tho' when present, it fosters them. Heaven knows! there are fellows who have more vices than scabs, & scabs countless -- with fewer Ideas than Plaisters"; describing his own health and his temperate diet, but saying that the climate continues to affect him: "I am fully determined to try Tenerife or Gran Canaria, influenced to prefer them to Madeira solely by the superior cheapness of living. The Climate & Country are heavenly -- the Inhabitants Papishes, all of whom I would burn with fire & faggot -- for what didn't they do to us Christians under bloody Queen Mary?"; continuing further in this line and inviting Southey to come with him; reminding him about books by Aquinas and Erigena that he had promised to give him; sending in a postscript his and Sara's love to Edith and Mary, and asking Southey to tell Mrs. Fricker that they will write her soon.
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