“I have read your long letter with much interest. The question of political economy may stand over till I find a proper place for touching upon it. Concerning the Irish question you quote the Edinburgh
* General Peachey, then newly elected M.P. for Taunton. |
| 266 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 52. |
“Political questions will never excite any difference of feeling between us in the slightest degree. I have lived all my life in the nearest and dearest intimacy with persons who were most opposed to me in such things: whether you or I be right is of no consequence to our happiness, present or future, and of very little as to our usefulness in society. The other point whereon you touch is of more importance.
“The growth and progress of my own opinions I can distinctly trace, for I have been watchfully a self-observer. What was hastily taken up in youth was gradually and slowly modified, and I have a clear remembrance of the how, and why, and when of any material change. This you will find (I trust) in the Autobiography which I shall leave, and in which some considerable progress is made, though it has not reached this point. It will be left, whether complete or not (for there is the chance of mortality for this) in a state for the press, so that you will have no trouble with it. There will be some in collecting my stray letters, and selecting such, in whole or in part, as may not unfitly be published, less for the sake of gratifying public curiosity, than of bringing money to my family.
| Ætat. 52. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 267 |
“One thing more will remain, which is to edit my poems from the corrected copies which are in my possession. Some pieces there will be to add, and some fragments, if I do not finish what is begun. The rise and growth of all my long poems may be shown (if it be thought worth while) from the memoranda made during their progress. To those who take an interest in such things, these will be curious, as showing how the stories developed themselves, what incidents were conceived and rejected, and how the plans were altered as the composition advanced. But for this how much, or how little, or if any, will be matter of discretion, to be decided as time and circumstances may serve.
“I spoke to Lockhart about the Georgics, and he was very glad to hear of your father for the subject, and of the subject for your father. God bless you!
