2828. Robert Southey to Grosvenor Charles Bedford, 10 August 1816⁠* 

Keswick 10 Aug. 1816

My dear Grosvenor

Yours with the half notes arrived just as I returned home after a weeks absence, – having been with the Wynns [1]  at Lowther & from thence round by Wordsworths, showing Nash the country. – When you have any more money for me discharge Hydes bill with it. [2] 

It would do you good were you to read mark learn & inwardly digest xxxx Qui fit Mæcenas &c [3]  – Instead however of reading comments upon that pregnant text I will tell you briefly & plainly what I have often thought of telling you & have as often deferred.

You are not too old for marrying, – tho it would have been better to have married earlier, – but whether you can make up your mind to the kind of marriage which is within your choice is a question which you alone can answer, & perhaps have never asked yourself; It is too late to marry for love, & at your time of life you ought not to chuse a woman under thirty, – a greater disparity of years would afford less chance for happiness. – Most women marry for the sake of obtaining a settlement in life, – their condition in this country is very forlorn unless they have fortunes, – & fortune falls to the lot of few. If you can resolve to marry a woman who has no money, you may find plenty who would accept you for prudenti, not for affection, but for prudential considerations, – but who would very xx soon learn to estimate you as you deserve. You could not do this without making some worldly sacrifices: – the first indispensable measure would be to insure your life, & thus secure a provision for your famil widow & f her in case of your death; – the next to live upon a scale of expenditure which should be within your the residue of your income by 100 £ an year. There would be no diminution of comfort or of respectability in this, for 500 £ a year you could live as happily as for 5000 £. – In your situation this is what I should do. I might have expressed myself perhaps as better less directly <more winningly> by means of circumlocution, – but you will not require any round-aboutness, or protestations, or qualifications from me.

A walk from Rydal, & a weeks continual exercise & excitement have somewhat tired me & unfitted me for writing just now – therefore it is that I have thus bolted out my meaning in blunt words.

God bless you

RS.