“I was not aware that it was so long since you had heard from me; of me you could only have heard from H. T., with whom I have a pretty constant communication, owing to the transmission of proofs. These come thick; there has been little tinkering in the third volume but the sixth, on which I am at work, requires a good deal, in repairing some old wefts and strays, and preparing prolegomena. Moreover, I am reviewing Barrow’s Life of Lord Howe; so you see I am not idle.
“In other respects, I can give no good report of
myself. There is every possible reason to be thankful for my poor Edith’s release, and God knows I am
truly thankful for it. But my spirits, which bore up through three trying
years, and continued to do so while there was immediate necessity for exertion,
show as yet no tendency to recover that elasticity which they lost when the
necessity ceased. Time will set all to rights. As the days lengthen, I shall be
able to rise earlier, which will be a great benefit, the worst hours being
those in which I lie awake, and
| 358 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 64. |
“Nothing more has been heard of Baldwin and Cradock’s affairs. But I must tell you what it will give you pleasure to hear. As soon as Lightfoot learnt that the sum which I had (as I thought) provided for carrying Cuthbert through the University, was supposed to be in danger of being lost, he offered to relieve me from all anxiety upon that score. Knowing the sincerity of that offer, I am just as much obliged to him as if there were any necessity for accepting it. But Dr. Bell’s legacy is available for that purpose. And as for my Cowperage, if it be recovered, as I think it will, so much the better; if it be lost, it will never enter into the thoughts that keep me wakeful at night, or in the slightest degree trouble me by day. . . . .
“To-day (30th) the sun shines, and it is some
satisfaction to see that there still is a sun, for he has been so long among
the non-apparentibus, that if I
jumped to my conclusions as eagerly as some of our
| Ætat. 64. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 359 |
“Your brother ought to reflect that though it is many a poor fellow’s duty to expose his life upon deck, and to lose it there, it is no man’s duty to die at the desk. And as I once heard a medical student say, when he expressed his satisfaction at having escaped being taken upon a resurrectionary party, ‘there is no glory in it.’ The first duty of any man, upon whose life the happiness or the well-being of others is in great degree dependent, is to take care of it God bless you! Our love to Miss Page.
