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A Memoir of the Reverend Sydney Smith
Letters 1825
Sydney Smith to Francis Jeffrey, [February 1826?]
INTRODUCTION & INDEXES
DOCUMENT INFORMATION
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Author's Preface
Contents
Chapter I
Chapter II
Chapter III
Chapter IV
Chapter V
Chapter VI
Chapter VII
Chapter VIII
Chapter IX
Chapter X
Chapter XI
Chapter XII
Index
Editor’s Preface
Letters 1801
Letters 1802
Letters 1803
Letters 1804
Letters 1805
Letters 1806
Letters 1807
Letters 1808
Letters 1809
Letters 1810
Letters 1811
Letters 1812
Letters 1813
Letters 1814
Letters 1815
Letters 1816
Letters 1817
Letters 1818
Letters 1819
Letters 1820
Letters 1821
Letters 1822
Letters 1823
Letters 1824
Letters 1825
Letters 1826
Letters 1827
Letters 1828
Letters 1829
Letters 1830
Letters 1831
Letters 1832
Letters 1833
Letters 1834
Letters 1835
Letters 1836
Letters 1837
Letters 1838
Letters 1839
Letters 1840
Letters 1841
Letters 1842
Letters 1843
Letters 1844
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Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.
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Foston, 1825.
My dear Jeffrey,

I addressed a letter to you ten days since, mentioning some subjects which, if agreeable to you, I would discuss in the Edinburgh Review. I know the value and importance of your time enough to make me sorry to intrude upon you again; but the printer, you know, is imperious in his demands, and limited in his time. Will you excuse me for requesting as early an answer as you can? It must be to you, as I am sure it is to me, a real pleasure to see so many improvements taking place, and so many abuses destroyed;—abuses upon which you, with cannon and mortars, and I with sparrow-shot, have been playing for so many years.

Mrs. Sydney always sends you reproaches for not coming to see her as you pass and repass; but I always reply to her, that the loadstone has no right to reproach the needle for not coming from a certain distance. The answer of the needle is, “Attract me, and I will come; I am passive.” “Alas! it is beyond my power,” says the magnet. “Then don’t blame me,” says the needle.

Sydney Smith.