4135. Robert Southey to Julius Hare, 18 February 1824
Address: To/ Julius Hare Esqre/ Trinity College/ Cambridge
Postmark: KESWICK/ 298
MS: The Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection of English and American Literature, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations. ALS; 4p.
Unpublished.
My first business on my return home has been to look for the passage to be inserted in the Dialogue between Cicero & his brother.
I am glad to perceive on discovering it that the letter gave me no cause to suppose it had been not been sent to you, – so that I stand acquitted of any neglect in not having transmitted it. The passage it seems was written in consequence of some observations in a letter of mine upon the pleasure from our children.
It is to be added after the sentence in which Cicero speaks of the pleasure of meeting his friends in a future state.
Quinctus
To leave behind us our children, if indeed they will be permitted to stay behind, is painful.
Marcus
Among all the contingencies of life, it is that for which we ought to be the best prepared, as the most regular & ordinary in the course of nature. We bequeath to ours a field illuminated by our glory, & enriched by our example: a noble patrimony, & beyond the jurisdiction of Prætor or proscriber. Nor indeed is our fall itself without its fruit to them; for violence is the cause why that is often called a calamity which is not so, & repairs in some measure its injuries by exciting to commiseration & kindness. The pleasure a man receives from his children resembles that which with more propriety than any other we may attribute to the Divinity: for to suppose that his chief satisfaction & delight should arise from the contemplation of what he has done or can do, is to place him on a level with a runner, or a wrestler. The formation of a world, or of a thousand worlds, is as easy to him as the formation of an atom. Virtue & intellect are equally his production: but he subjects them in no slight degree to our volition. His benevolence is gratified at seeing us conquer our wills & rise superior to our infirmities; & at tracing day after day a nearer resemblance in our moral features to his. We can derive no pleasure but from exertion: he can derive none from it, since exertion, as we understand the word, is incompatible with omnipotence.
Quinctus
Proceed my brother. In all temptations of mind & feeling my spirits are equalized by your discourse, & that in particular which you said with rather too much brevity, of our children, soothes me greatly
Marcus
I am persuaded of the truth in what I have spoken. And yet – ah Quinctus! there is a tear that Philosophy cannot dry; & a pang that will rise as we approach the Gods.
May I request you when you send this to Mr Taylor to say to him that when he sends off a parcel to Landor, I shall be able much obliged to him if he will pack up with it some books for me, which I will take care shall be deposited in Waterloo Place
without delay.
Believe me Dear Sir
Yrs very truly
Robert Southey.
