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Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas, Austin . Previously published: E. L. Griggs (ed.), Collected letters of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 6 vols (Oxford, 1956–1971), I, p. 148 n. 2 [in part].Dating note: Dating is from evidence within this letter and others written by Southey and Samuel Taylor Coleridge in January 1795. Coleridge was expected to arrive in Bristol on Wednesday 7 January and this letter is written on Friday 9 January, by which time he had still not appeared. Southey left Bath on Saturday 10 January, arriving in London the following day.
These letters were edited with the assistance of Carol Bolton, Tim Fulford and Ian Packer
For permission to publish the text of MSS in their possession, the editor wishes to thank the Beinecke Rare Books and Manuscript Library, Yale University; Berg Collection of English and American Literature, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations; the Bodleian Library Oxford University; the British Library; Boston Public Library; the Syndics of Cambridge University Library; the Syndics of the Fitzwilliam Museum Cambridge; Haverford College, Connecticut; the Historical Society of Pennsylvania; the Hornby Library, Liverpool Libraries and Information Services; the Houghton Library, Harvard University; the John Rylands Library, Manchester; the Kenneth Spencer Research Library, University of Kansas; Luton Museum (Bedfordshire County Council); Massachusetts Historical Society; McGill University Library; the National Library of Scotland; the Newberry Library, Chicago; the New York Public Library (Pforzheimer Collections); the Pierpont Morgan Library, New York; the Public Record Offices of Bedford, Suffolk (Bury St Edmunds) and Northumberland, the Master and Fellows of Trinity College, Cambridge; the Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle upon Tyne; the Trustees of the William Salt Library, Stafford, the Wisbech and Fenland Museum; the University of Virginia Library.
A research grant from the British Academy made much of the archival work possible, as did support from the English Department of Nottingham Trent University.
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I believe I should be very angry were it not for the hope that he has written to Bristol. your sister desired me to let you know when he arrived, & you must attribute these repeated letters to my wish of alleviating suspense as much as possible. you would be disgusted with my hand-writing were I to continue this — so from henceforth I will write no more on so unpleasant an occasion — if he comes you shall know. excuse me for having troubled you so often.
this state of expectation totally unfits me for any thing. when I attempt to employ myself the first knock at the door wakes all my hopes again & again disappoints them. tis a very unpleasant state — I cannot ask you to write because in hourly hopes of seeing him & then visiting you — so here I am — alone — & without the half-compensation of correspondence.
the looking glass represents me most melancholy in my sable suit.
if my eyes were shut a true methodist parson but their cast is different. I have
passed the evening with Mrs Selwoodrs
Selwood goes tomorrow morning — she begs to be rememberd to your sister.
remember me likewise — tell her that I found much pleasure in writing to her —
but rather abandoned it than would run the risk of fatiguing her. —
for mercys sake console me here with a letter — I shall have it tomorrow night or Sunday morning — I am so heavy so dull so solitary! this vile expectation unhinges me so lamentably. they laugh at my punctuality — so it is — man delights to ridicule the virtue he does not possess that he may learn to despise the want of it! punctuality — why it is the very prominent feature in my character. I never have been laughed out of principles yet.
truly I am ashamed to write — & yet think I ought to. tis the last letter. you have your sisters & Lovell to cheer you — well — March soon comes & then a fig for care.
farewell — I am kept in exercise by walking to meet the coaches. did he say Wednesday positively to you? I told you about the middle of the week. why will he ever fix a day if he cannot abide by it. — the quarter boys at Christ Church were the most respectable characters I have met with for they never disappointed me.
farewell once more
my Mother is well & never wavers. do you know th[MS torn] I am almost afraid to write to you — since my f[MS torn] letter displeased you. I am a sad hand at turning[MS torn] a neat phrase & rounding a period — plain sincer[MS torn] aim at — & most sincerely do I wish to pleas[MS torn]