“Do you not see that the charge of my speaking
acrimoniously against persons for thinking as I once thought is ridiculously
false? Against whom are the strong expressions used, to which you refer in the
Quarterly Review and the Registers. Against the rank
Bonapartists, with whom I had never any more resemblance than I have with the
worshippers of the devil in Africa; and against those who, without actually
favouring him as Whitbread did,
nevertheless thought it hopeless to make our stand against him on the ground
where we had every possible advantage? And as for the Jacobin writers of the
day,—in what have I ever resembled them? Did I ever address myself to the
base and malignant feelings of the rabble? and season falsehood and sedition
with slander and impiety? It is perfectly true that I thought the party who
uniformly predicted
| 260 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 43. |
“If you saw me now you would not think otherwise of my temper under affliction than you did in the summer. I have never in the slightest degree yielded to grief, but my spirits have not recovered, nor do I think they ever will recover, their elasticity. The world is no longer the same to me. You cannot conceive the change in my occupations and enjoyments: no person who had not seen what my ways of life were can conceive how they were linked with his life. But be assured that I look habitually for comfort where it is to be found.
|
* “The paper in the Quarterly Review is directed against the Edinburgh Reviewer, whose words are quoted to justify the epithets.”—R. S. |
| Ætat. 43. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 261 |
“God bless you! I shall be in town on the 24th, at my brother’s, and leave it on the 1st of May.
