“. . . . . If I have learnt to look with indifference
upon those whom I meet in casual society, it is because in early life
circumstances (and disposition also) made me retire into myself, like a snail
into his shell; and in later years, because so many new faces have come to me
like shadows, and so departed. Yet I was not slow in my likings when young, nor
has time rendered me so: it has only withheld me from making any advances
towards intimacy with persons, however likeable, whom it is certain that I can
have very few
| Ætat. 63. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 325 |
“It is indeed most desirable to knit our friends in a circle; and one of those hopes which, thank God, have in me the strength of certainties, is that this will be done in the next stage of our existence, when all the golden links of the chain will be refined and rendered lasting. I have been travelling for the last ten weeks through places where recollections met me at every stage; and this certainly alone could render such recollections endurable. My faith in that future which cannot be far off never fails.
“God bless you!
