“Mere shame has for some time withheld me from writing,
till I could tell you that my Colloquies, which have so long been in the press, were on the
| 38 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 55. |
“Rejuvenescent, however, in a more important sense of the word, thank God, I am. When your consignment arrived at Keswick last summer, I was in London under Copeland the surgeon’s hands. By an operation which some years ago was one of the most serious in surgery, but which he (more than any other person) has rendered as safe as any operation can be, I have been effectually relieved from an infirmity which had afflicted me about twelve years, and which often rendered me incapable of walking half a mile. Now I am able to climb the mountains; and as then I was never without a sense of infirmity when I moved, I never walk now without a consciousness of the blessing that it is to have been thus rendered sound. This sort of second spring
* The titles of these were—“All for Love, or a Sinner well saved;” and “The Pilgrim to Compostella.” |
| Ætat. 55. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 39 |
“Nevertheless I have mementos enough in myself and in those around me. The infant whom you saw in his basket, has now entered upon his eleventh year, and is making progress in Dutch and German as well as in Greek and Latin. The youngest of my remaining daughters has ceased to be a girl. She who was the flower of them (and never was there a fairer flower)—you will remember her—is in heaven; and were it not for the sure hope we have in looking forward, I could not bear to look back.
“This year, I trust, will see good progress made in
Oliver Newman, the poem
being so far advanced that it becomes an object to take it earnestly in hand
and complete it. With us no poetry now obtains circulation except what is in
the Annuals; these are the only books which are purchased for presents, and the
chief sale which poetry used to have was of this kind. Here, however, we are
overrun with imitative talent in all the fine arts, especially in fine
literature; and if it is not already the case with you, it will very soon be
so. I can see some good in this: in one or two generations imitative talent
will become so common, that it will not be mistaken, when it first manifests
itself, for genius; and it will then be cultivated rather as an embellishment
for private life, than with aspiring views of
| 40 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 55. |
“Wordsworth has had a most dangerous fall, headlong, from his own mount, but providentially received no serious injury. He is looking old, but vigorous as ever both in mind and body. Remember me to all my Boston friends, and present my thanks to Mr. Norton for his edition of Mrs. Hemans’s poems, which reached me safely. I was very sorry that he found me here in a crowd, in consequence of which I saw much less of him and his very agreeable companions than we all wished to have done.
“God bless you, my dear Sir!
