“Never talk to me of obstinacy, for contrary to all the dictates of sound sense, long custom, and inclination, I have spoilt a sheet of paper by cutting it to the shape of your fancy. Accuse me not of irascibility, for I wrote to you ten days back, and though you have never vouchsafed me an answer, am now writing with all the mildness and goodness of a philosopher.
“Call me Job, for I am without
clothes, expecting my baggage from day to day; and much as I fear its loss
unrepining, own I am modest in assuming no merit for all these good qualities.
Know then, most indolent of mortals, that my baggage is not yet ar-
| Ætat. 19. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 185 |
“Now I am much inclined to fill this sheet, and that with verse, but I will punish myself to torment you: you shall have half a prose letter. The College bells are dinning the King’s proclamation in my ear, the linings of my breeches are torn, you are silent, and all this makes me talkative and angrily communicative; so that had you merited it, you would have received such a letter,—so philosophic, poetical, grave, erudite, amusing, instructive, elegant, simple, delightful, simplex munditiis,—in short, το αγαθον και το αριστον, το βελτιστον—such a letter, Grosvenor, full of odes, elegiacs, epistles, monodramas, comodramas, tragodramas, all sorts of dramas, though I have not tasted spirits to-day. Don’t think me drunk, for if I am, ’tis with sobriety; and I certainly feel most seriously disposed to be soberly nonsensical. Now you wish I would dispose my folly to a short series; which sentence if you comprehend, you will do more than I can. You must not be surprised at nonsense, for I have been reading the history of philosophy, the ideas of Plato, the logic of Aristotle, and the heterogeneous dogmas of Pythagoras, Antisthenes, Zeno, Epicurus, and Pyrrho, till I have metaphysicized away all my senses, and so you are the better for it. . . . .
“Now good night! Egregious nonsense, execrably written, is all you merit. O my clothes! O Joan!”*
|
* The first MS. of Joan of Arc was in his baggage. |
| 186 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 19. |
“Now my friend, whether it be from the day itself, from the dull weather, or from the dream of last night, I know not, but I am a little more serious than when I laid down the pen. My baggage makes me very uneasy: the loss of what is intrinsically worth only the price of the paper would be more than ever I should find time, or perhaps ability, to repair; and even supposing some rascal should get them and publish them, I should be more vexed than at the utter loss. Do write immediately. I direct to you that you may have this the sooner. Inform me when you receive it, and with what direction. It is almost a fortnight since I left Brixton, and I am equipped in such old shirts, stockings, and shoes, as have been long cast off, and have lost all this time, in which I should have transcribed half of Joan. . . . .
“Of the various sects that once adorned the republic of
Athens, to me that of Epicurus, whilst it
maintained its original purity, appears most consonant to human reason. I am
not speaking of his metaphysics and atomary system; they are (as all
cosmogonies must be) ridiculous; but of that system of ethics and pleasure
combined, which he taught in the garden. When the philosopher declared that the
ultimate design of life is happiness, and happiness consists in virtue, he laid
the foundation of a system which might have benefited mankind; his life was the
most temperate, his manner the most affable, displaying that urbanity which
cannot fail of attracting esteem. Plotinus,
a man memorable for corrupting philosophy, was in
| Ætat. 19. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 187 |
| 188 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 19. |
