“After what Henry Taylor has imparted to you, you will not be surprised at learning that I have been parted from my wife by something worse than death. Forty years has she been the life of my life; and I have left her this day in a lunatic asylum.
“God, who has visited me with this affliction, has given me strength to bear it, and will, I know, support me to the end—whatever that may be.
“Our faithful Betty is left with her. All that can be done by the kindest treatment, and the greatest skill, we are sure of at the Retreat. I do not expect more than that she may be brought into a state which will render her perfectly manageable at home. More is certainly possible, but not to be expected, and scarcely to be hoped.
“To-morrow I return to my poor children. There is this great comfort,—that the disease is not hereditary, her family having within all memory been entirely free from it.
“I have much to be thankful for under this visitation.
For the first time in my life I am so far beforehand with the world, that my
means are provided
| Ætat. 60. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 245 |
“Another thing for which I am thankful is, that the stroke did not fall upon me when the printers were expecting the close of my naval volume; or the Memoir of Dr. Watts. To interrupt a periodical publication is a grievous loss to the publishers, or, at least, a very serious inconvenience. . . . .
“Some old author says, ‘Remember, under any affliction, that Time is short; and that though your Cross may be heavy, you have not far to bear it.’
“I have often thought of those striking words.
“God bless you, my dear Grosvenor! My love to Miss Page; she, I know, will feel for us, and will pray for us.
