“I sincerely thank you for your letter. . . . . I am
inclined to think, when my uncle blamed
me for not doing my utmost to relieve my family, he must have alluded to my
repeated refusal of entering orders; a step which undoubtedly would almost
instantly have relieved them, and which occasioned me great anguish and many
conflicts of mind. To this I have been urged by him, and by my mother; but you
know what my religious opinions are, and I need not ask whether I did rightly
and honestly in refusing. Till Christmas last, I supported myself wholly by the
profits of my writings. . . . . Thus you may see that the only means I have
ever possessed of assisting my mother, was by entering the church. God knows I
would exchange every intellectual gift which he has blessed me with, for
implicit faith to have been able to do this. . . . . I care not for the opinion
of the world, but I would willingly be thought justly of by a few individuals.
I labour at a study which I very
| Ætat. 23. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 321 |
