821. Robert Southey to Mary Barker, 19 August [1803]*

You will be shocked at reading this – our poor child ¹ is dying of water on the brain. she is happily insensible – & I trust in God will very speedily pass to a world of more permanent happiness. Edith is almost heart-broken – & I am struggling with the heaviest affliction that it has ever yet pleased God to try me with.

As soon as possible after her deliverance we shall set off for Keswick. I will write to you from thence our hopes & views are all wrecked & ruined. but we shall soon be better. indeed I am recovering, the first shock came upon me like a thunderbolt – it is past & I am perfectly resigned

God bless you R Southey.
Friday Aug 19.

Notes

Address: Miss Barker/ Congreve/ Miss Barker Penkridge/ Staffordshire.
Postmark: [partial] BRISTOL AUG 803
MS: MS untraced; text is taken from Robert Galloway Kirkpatrick Jnr, ‘The Letters of Robert Southey to Mary Barker From 1800 to 1826’ (unpublished PhD, Harvard, 1967), p. 59
Unpublished. Back

1. Mary Barker was Margaret’s godmother. Back