“I should have replied to your letter immediately upon
receiving it, if the answer could have reached you before your departure for
Paris; because I suspect from one part of that letter, that the copy of my
Colloquies which I
requested Murray to send you as soon as
they were published, had not found its way to you. Should this be the case, I
pray you cause inquiry to be made for it of his people. You
| 68 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 55. |
“Though far from any approach to Quakerism myself, I have always justified your transition to it, thinking that under your circumstances the change was both a natural and a happy one. I should have been better pleased if you had not consented to corrupt the King’s English, against which debasement, I think, your example, when you conformed in other things, might perhaps have produced some effect; proud of such a proselyte as, however it may seem, the Society must be; not that this is a matter of any moment, except that I do not like to see you conform to anything which is not reasonable and worthy of yourself. But the mere change to a state of religious feeling, and a strict sect, would not have induced me to address you so publicly and pointedly upon a subject which I have very much at heart, from a deep sense of its utility, if I had not heard an expression of yours relating to ‘prison duties,’ which I think (though highly meritorious in itself) is not the best direction which heroic charity can take. But the words proved that that charity had taken possession of you, and that you were ready to follow wherever it might lead.
“You and I have lived in an age of revolutions, and
the greatest, as affecting this country, and ultimately the whole of Europe and
of the Christian world, is yet to come. The evils of the manufacturing system,
and the misery of the poor, are approaching a crisis; and unless some effectual
re-
| Ætat. 55. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 69 |
“I see so distinctly the dangers which beset us, and the only means by which they are to be resisted, that if the objects which I have at heart could be promoted by my preaching in the fields and market places, I would go forth and do so. But my power is in the inkstand, and my place is here, where I will take every opportunity of enforcing upon such of the public as have ears to hear, truths necessary for their political salvation, did they look no farther.
“When I designated you so plainly in that Colloquy, I wrote under the influence of strong feeling; but I have ever since been calmly convinced that I neither spoke too strongly, nor said too much. Amelia Opie, I know no person so qualified, and let me say so prepared, as you to take the lead in a great work of goodness; and if you are of one mind with me in this, I verily believe it will be done.
“God bless you!
