“My literary employments have never, in the slightest degree, injured my health. For, in truth, I neither am, nor ever have been, a close student. If I do not take sufficient exercise, it is not from any love of the desk, but for the want of a companion or an object to draw me out when the season is uninviting; and yet I overcome the dislike of solitary walking, and every day, unless it be a settled rain, walk long enough, and far, and fast enough, to require the wholesome process of rubbing down on my return. At no time of my life have I applied half so closely to my employment as you always do to yours. They impose upon me no restrictions. There is nothing irksome in them; no anxiety connected with them; they leave me master of my time and of myself; nor do I doubt but they would prove conducive to longevity if my constitution were disposed for it.
“With regard to the prudence of working up ready
materials rather than laying in more, upon whatever I employ myself, I must of
necessity be doing both. The work which I am most desirous of completing is the
History of Portugal, as being that for which most
preparation has been made, and most time bestowed on it, and when the Peninsular War shall be
completed, by God’s blessing, a week shall not elapse before it goes to
the press; for it has
| Ætat. 50. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 189 |
“I am, however, conscious now of a disposition the reverse of Montaigne’s, who loved, he said, rather to forge his mind than to furnish it. Avarice, you know, is the passion of declining years, and avaricious I confess myself to be of the only treasure I have ever coveted or ever shall possess. My temper or turn of mind inclines also to form new projects. But it is one thing to perceive what might be done, and another to dream of doing it. No doubt wherever Mr. Telford is travelling, he cannot help seeing where a line of road ought to be carried, a harbour improved, or a pier carried out. In like manner I see possibilities and capabilities and desirabilities, and I think no more of them. God bless you!
