Very cordially I return your friendly salutations, feeling,
as I do, that every manifestation of kindness for my husband’s sake is
more precious to me than any I could receive for my own exclusively.
Two-and-twenty years ago, when he wished to put into your hands, as publisher,
a first attempt of mine, of which he thought better than it deserved, he little
thought that in so doing he was endeavouring to forward the interests of his
future wife; of her for whom it was appointed (a sad but honoured lot) to be
the companion of his later days, over which it has pleased God to cast the
“shadow before” of that “night in which no man can
work.” But twelve short months ago he was cheerfully anticipating (in the
bright buoyancy of his happy nature) a far other companionship for the short
remainder of our earthly sojourn; never forgetting, however, that ours must be
short at the longest, and that “in the midst of life we are in
death.” He desires me to thank you for your kind
| SOUTHEY’S LAST DAYS. | 503 |
