“Your letter did not surprise me, though it would from
almost any one else. Thank you most heartily for your offer. But at present it
is better that I should be alone, and that the girls should be left to
themselves with Miss Hutchinson. For me
this is best, because nothing is so painful as the reaction of
| 248 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 60. |
“The worst of my business has been got through. I had Cuthbert at his lessons this morning; to-day will clear off the remaining and less important letters, and to-morrow I hope to resume my work; not, however, forcing myself to it, but following the course which my own instinct will point out.
“Miss Fenwick will like to see the last passage which I wrote before this calamity burst upon me, and certainly with no prospective feelings. It will be safe with her if you tell her from whence it is extracted. God bless you!
“‘He had looked for consolation where, when sincerely sought, it is always to be found, and he had experienced that religion effects in a true believer all that philosophy professes, and more than all that mere philosophy can perform. The wounds which stoicism cauterises, Christianity heals.
“‘There is a resignation with which, it may
be feared, most of us deceive ourselves. To bear what must be borne, and
submit to what cannot be resisted, is no more than what the unregenerate
heart is taught by the instinct of animal nature. But to acquiesce in the
afflictive dispensations of Providence,—to make one’s own will
conform in all things to
| Ætat. 60. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 249 |
