16 January 1800

Robert Southey to Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Thursday 16 January 1800.1

Thursday 16 Jany 1800

[...] Will you convey the herewith book to Mary Hays. She is a woman perhaps erroneous in all points of first importance, but a woman of talents, and I believe of a good and warm heart. I like and esteem her. Lloyd made one of his mushroom intimacies with her and you know how it was broken off. Mary Hays is one of those persons whom twenty years hence it will be pleasant and gratifying to have seen. Moreover Sarah may wish for some female acquaintance. I have not mentioned you in the letter least you should not like to call with it. [...]

1 Excerpt taken from Curry, New Letters 1.214-15; also in Brooks, Correspondence 325;  The Collected Letters of Robert Southey (Romantic Circles edition), gen ed. Lynda Pratt, Tim Fulford, and Ian Packer.