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MS untraced; text is taken from Charles Cuthbert Southey (ed.), Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey, 6 vols (London, 1849–1850). Previously published: Charles Cuthbert Southey (ed.), Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey, 6 vols (London, 1849–1850), II, 348–350.
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.
Any dashes occurring in line breaks have been removed.
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Southey’s spelling has not been regularized.
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I need not tell you, my own dear Edith, not to read my letters aloud till you have first of all seen what is
written only for yourself. What I have now to say to you is, that having been eight days from home, with as little discomfort, and
as little reason for discomfort, as a man can reasonably expect, I have yet felt so little comfortable, so great sense of
solitariness, and so many homeward yearnings, that certainly I will not go to Lisbon without you; a resolution which, if your
feelings be at all like mine, will not displease you. If, on mature consideration, you think the inconvenience of a voyage more
than you ought to submit to, I must be content to stay in England, as on my part it certainly is not worth while to sacrifice a
year’s happiness; for, though not unhappy (my mind is too active and too well disciplined to yield to any such criminal weakness),
still without you I am not happy. But for your sake as well as my own, and for little
Edith’s sake, I will not consent to any separation; the growth of a year’s love between her and me, if it please God
that she should live, is a thing too delightful in itself, and too valuable in its consequences, both to her and me, to be given
up for any light inconveniences either on your part or mine. An absence of a year would make her effectually forget me.
. .
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. But of these things we will talk at leisure; only, dear dear
Edith, we must not part. .
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Last night we saw the young Roscius in Douglas;more than just say what is uppermost.
This evening I meet Jeffrey and Brougham at Thomson’s
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The third sitting will finish the letter. Thomson brought with him the review of Madoc
(which will be published in about ten days), sent to me by Jeffrey, who did not
like to meet me till I had seen it.