“Yesterday I deposited my dear wife in the Retreat for Lunatics, near this city, and to-day I visited her there. To-morrow I return home, to enter upon a new course of life. . . . .
| 246 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 60. |
“Recovery is possible; but I do not attempt to deceive myself, by thinking that it is likely. It is very probable that she may be brought into a state which will no longer require restraint. In that case, I shall engage a proper attendant from this place, bring her home, appropriate two rooms to her use, and watch over her to give her all the comforts of which she may be capable, till death do us part. . . . .
“The call upon me for exertion has been such, that, by God’s help, I have hitherto felt no weakness.
“That this is a far greater calamity than death would have been, I well know. But I perceive that it can be better borne at first, because there is a possibility of restoration, and, however feeble, a hope. Therefore that collapse is not to be apprehended which always ensues when the effort which the circumstances of a mortal sickness, and death, and burial, call forth in the survivor, is at an end.
“Mine is a strong heart. I will not say that the last week has been the most trying of my life; but I will say, that the heart which could bear it can bear anything.
“It is remarkable that the very last thing I wrote
before this affliction burst upon me in its full force, was upon Resignation,
little foreseeing, God knows, how soon and how severely my own principles were
to be put to the proof. The occasion was this:—Mrs. Hughes thought it would gratify me to
peruse a letter which she had just received from one of her friends,—a
clergyman who had recently suffered
| Ætat. 60. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 247 |
“This made me reflect upon the difference between religious resignation and that which is generally mistaken for it, and, for immediate purpose, in no slight degree supplies its place. You will see what I was thus led to write, in its proper place.
“Davies came with me here, and has been of great use. God bless you, my dear H. T.!
