BIB_ID
417378
Accession number
MA 77.15
Creator
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 1772-1834.
Display Date
Keswick, England, 1803 November 22.
Credit line
Purchased by Pierpont Morgan, 1904.
Description
1 item (3 pages, with address) ; 23.9 x 19.8 cm
Notes
Coleridge gives only "Tuesday Night" for the date of writing. In the Collected Letters of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Griggs argues, based on Thomas Clarkson's movements and a letter from Southey written on November 19th, that this letter was most likely written November 22, 1803, which fell on a Tuesday. See the published edition of the correspondence, cited below, for additional information.
The words "November 1803" been added at the start of the letter in red ink in an unknown hand.
This collection, MA 77, is comprised of fifteen letters from Samuel Taylor Coleridge to John Thelwall, one letter from Coleridge to Susannah (called "Stella") Thelwall, two letters from John Thelwall to Susannah Thelwall, one letter from Peter Crompton to John Thelwall, and one incomplete draft of an article on the death of Queen Charlotte. The letters were written from 1796 to 1803, and the draft may have been written in 1818.
Address panel with postmarks: "Mrs Thelwall / Kendal."
The words "November 1803" been added at the start of the letter in red ink in an unknown hand.
This collection, MA 77, is comprised of fifteen letters from Samuel Taylor Coleridge to John Thelwall, one letter from Coleridge to Susannah (called "Stella") Thelwall, two letters from John Thelwall to Susannah Thelwall, one letter from Peter Crompton to John Thelwall, and one incomplete draft of an article on the death of Queen Charlotte. The letters were written from 1796 to 1803, and the draft may have been written in 1818.
Address panel with postmarks: "Mrs Thelwall / Kendal."
Provenance
Purchased by Pierpont Morgan from the London dealer J. Pearson & Co., 1904. Removed from a bound volume in June 1967.
Summary
Saying that he did not receive her husband John's letter until the day before yesterday, when Thomas Clarkson delivered it, and the delay concerned him, "as Thelwall would naturally think my silence a proof of neglect & forgetfulness of past kindness;" writing that he has been so ill, "with such a complication of bodily miseries," for the last three weeks that he could not have come over to Kendal anyway; suggesting an itinerary around the Lake District, with stops in Grasmere (to see Wordsworth) and Keswick; adding that he himself traveled the road from Keswick to Carlisle that year in an Irish Car; saying that if Thelwall decides to follow this itinerary, he should let him know the date he intends to leave Kendal and "I will - if my miserable Carcase be in any tolerable state of subservience to my wishes - walk to Kendal, & so return with him, in order to see you & your family - & to have the more of his Conversation;" describing with what tenderness he has thought of Thelwall and how much he rejoices that he has "disembarked from a troubled Sea of Noises and hoarse disputes, to behold the bright countenance of Truth in the quiet and still Air of delightful Disquisition;" writing that he is curious about Thelwall's system, as put forth in a syllabus; warning him about Edinburgh: "I dread at Edingburgh the effects of the inordinate Self-sufficiency & Disputatiousness that deform the character of the literary part of it's Inhabitants / if report is not a Liar;" writing further about conversation, disputatiousness, and truth; mentioning that he has "3 children, 2 boys, & a girl - & they & my Wife are well. I sincerely wish, we were near Kendal - or rather than Kendal were very near to this Heaven upon Earth / that the two families might be comforts to each other;" saying that he is rushing to finish the letter and put it in the post; sending his "kindest remembrances" to her and her husband.
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