“This event could not have been regarded otherwise than
as a deliverance at any time, since there ceased to be a hope of mental
restoration; and for several weeks it was devoutly to be desired. Yet it has
left a sense of bereavement which I had not expected to feel, lost as she had
been to me for the last three years, and worse than lost. During more than
two-thirds of my life, she had been the chief object of my thoughts, and I of
hers. No man ever had a truer helpmate I no children a more careful mother. No
family was ever more wisely ordered, no house-
| 352 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 64. |
“I always looked upon it as conducing much to our happiness, that we were of the same age, for in proportion to any perceptible disparity on that point, the marriage union is less complete. And so completely was she part of myself, that the separation makes me feel like a different creature. While she was herself I had no sense of growing old, or at most only such as the mere lapse of time brought with it; there was no weight of years upon me, my heart continued young, and my spirits retained their youthful buoyancy. Now, the difference of five and thirty years between me and Bertha continually makes me conscious of being an old man. There is no one to partake with me the recollections of the best and happiest portion of my life; and for that reason, were there no other, such recollections must henceforth be purely painful, except when I connect them with the prospect of futurity.
“You will not suppose that I encourage this mood of mind. But it is well sometimes to look sorrow in the face; and always well to understand one’s own condition. . . . .
“Meantime you may be assured that I shall not be
wanting in self-management, as far as that can avail; that I shall think as
little as I can of the past,
| Ætat. 64. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 353 |
“Remember me most kindly to Miss Page. God bless you, my dear Grosvenor!
