“An ever-present sense of the uncertainty of all human projects does not, and indeed ought not, to prevent me from forecasting what course it may be best to pursue under any probable circumstances. For this I have had but too much opportunity for some time past, and temptation to it as well, for it was some kind of relief from the present and the past.
“About the middle of January Karl must begin his residence at Oxford. I think of giving him charge of Kate, to London, from whence she will proceed to Tarring.
“Bertha and I must winter where we are. The house cannot be left without a mistress.
“We shall find salutary occupations enough till
Cuthbert returns about the end of
March, for a month’s recreation. That brings me to the month of May. By
that time my extraordinaries will be provided for by the Admirals (whatever becomes of
| 350 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 64. |
“In May then (I do not look so far forward without
misgivings),—but if all go on well, by God’s blessing in
May,—I hope to leave home with Bertha, and our invaluable Betty, whose
services to us for five-and-twenty years, through weal and woe, have been
beyond all price, who loves my children as dearly as if they were her own, and
loved their poor mother with that sort of attachment which is now so rarely
found in that relation, and served her with the most affectionate and dutiful
fidelity to the last. The house might safely be left in her charge, but she
needs recruiting as much as we do. So I shall go first with
Bertha and her into Norfolk, and pass a week or ten
days with Neville White, discharging
thus a visit which was miserably prevented three years ago. Then we go to
London, making little tarriance there, and that chiefly for
Betty’s sake, on whom the sight of London will
not be thrown away. By that time Kate will have got
through both her stay at Tarring, and her visit to Miss Fenwick; and depositing Bertha at
Tarring, I think of taking Kate with me
to the West. One friend there I have lost since my last journey; it must have
been about this very day twelvemonths that I shook hands with him, little
thinking that it was for the last time. But there are still some persons there
who will rejoice to see us. Old as my
| Ætat. 64. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 351 |
“God bless you!
“It has been snowing this morning for the first time in the valley, but the snow having turned to rain, I shall presently prepare for my daily walk, from which nothing but snow deters me.”
