“Grosvenor, what
should that necromancer deserve who could transpose our souls for half an hour,
and make each the inhabitant of the other’s tenement? There are so many
curious avenues in mine, and so
| Ætat. 21. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 255 |
“Here I am, in a huge and handsome mansion, not a finer room in the county of Cornwall than the one in which I write; and yet have I been silent, and retired into the secret cell of my own heart. This day week, Bedford! There is a something in the bare name that is now mine, that wakens sentiments I know not how to describe: never did man stand at the altar with such strange feelings as I did. Can you, Grosvenor, by any effort of imagination, shadow out my emotion? . . . . She returned the pressure of my hand, and we parted in silence.——Zounds! what have I to do with supper!
“I love writing, because to write to a dear friend is like escaping from prison. Grosvenor, my mind is confined here; there is no point of similarity between my present companions and myself. But, ‘If I have freedom in,’ &c.: you know the quotation.*
“This is a foul country: the tinmen inhabit the most agreeable part of it, for they live underground. Above it is most dreary; desolate. My sans culotte†, like Johnson’s in Scotland, becomes a valuable piece
† His walking stick. |
| 256 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 21. |
“My bones are very thinly cushioned with flesh, and the jolting over these rough roads has made them very troublesome. Bedford, they are at this moment uttering aristocracy, and I am silent. Two whole days was I imprisoned in stage coaches, cold as a dog’s nose, hungry, and such a sinking at the heart as you can little conceive. Should I be drowned on the way, or by any other means take possession of that house where anxiety never intrudes, there will be a strange page or two in your life of me.
“My Joan of Arc must by this time be printed: the first of next month it comes out. To me it looks like something that has concerned me, but from which my mind is now completely disengaged. The sight of pen and ink reminds me of it. You will little like some parts of it. For me, I am now satisfied with the poem, and care little for its success.
“You supped upon Godwin and oysters, with Carlisle. Have you, then, read Godwin, and
that with attention? Give me your thoughts upon his book; for faulty as it is
in many parts, there is a mass of truth in it that must make every man think.
God-
| Ætat. 21. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 257 |
“The children in the next room are talking—a harpsichord not far distant annoys me grievously—but then there are a large company of rooks, and their croak is always in unison with what is going on in my thorax. I have a most foul pain suddenly seized me there. Grosvenor, if a man could but make pills of philosophy for the mind! but there is only one kind of pill that will cure mental disorders, and a man must be labouring under the worst before he can use that. . . . . I am waiting for the packet, and shall be here ten days. Direct to me at Miss Russell’s, Falmouth: there I shall find your letters: and remember, that by writing you will give some pleasure to one who meets with very little.
