404. Robert Southey to Edith Southey [fragment], [early May 1799]*

At last, my dear Edith, I sit down to write to you in quiet and with something like comfort           .            .            .            .            My morning has been spent pleasantly, for it has been spent alone in the library; the hours so employed pass rapidly enough, but I grow more and more homesick like a spoilt child. On the 29th you may expect me. Term opens on the 26th; after eating my third dinner I can drive to the mail, and thirteen shillings will be well bestowed in bringing me home four-and-twenty hours earlier – it is not above sixpence an hour, Edith, and I would gladly purchase an hour at home now at a much higher price           .           .           .           .           .           .           .           .           .           .           .           .           .           .           .           .           .          

My stall-hunting, the great and only source of my enjoyment in London, has been tolerably successful. I have picked up an epic poem in French, on the Discovery of America,¹ which will help out the notes of Madoc; another on the American Revolution,² the Alaric,³ and an Italian one,⁴ of which I do not know the subject, for the title does not explain it; also I have got Astraea,⁵ the whole romance, a new folio, almost a load for a porter, and the print delightfully small – fine winter evenings’ work: and I have had self-denial enough – admire me, Edith! – to abstain from these books till my return, that I may lose no time in ransacking the library.

I met Stuart one day, luckily, as it saved me a visit. To-morrow must be given up to writing for him, as he has had nothing since I came to town. The more regularly these periodical works are done, the easier they are to do. I have had no time since I left home: in fact I can do nothing as it should be done anywhere else.

          .           .           .           .           Do not suppose I have forgotten to look out for a book for you; to-day I saw a set of Florian,⁶ which pleases me, unless a better can be found.

          .           .           .           .           Do you know that I am truly and actually learning Dutch, to read Jacob Cats.⁷ You will, perhaps, be amused at a characteristic trait in that language: other people say, I pity; but the Dutch verb is, I pity myself.