4284. Robert Southey to Andrew Bell [fragment], 24 November 1824

 

MS: MS untraced; text is taken from Robert Southey, Caroline Southey and Charles Cuthbert Southey, The Life of the Rev. Andrew Bell, 3 vols (London, 1844)
Previously published: Robert Southey, Caroline Southey and Charles Cuthbert Southey, The Life of the Rev. Andrew Bell, 3 vols (London, 1844), III, pp. 670–671 [in part].

Keswick, 24th Nov. 1824.
My dear Sir,

… I am not surprised that you should succeed in putting your estates in order,

(1)

Bell had invested some of the money he had acquired during his service in India in 1787–1796 in land, buying over 400 acres of farmland near Castle Douglas in Dumfriesshire in 1798.

and am heartily glad that you have taken interest enough in the occupation to set about it in earnest. You would have made a good engineer, a good general, a good statesman; any thing that required promptitude, decision, and energy. I, on the contrary, have no convertible powers, being just fit for what I am, and for nothing else in the world. God bless you, my dear sir. Yours with sincere regard.

Notes

1. Bell had invested some of the money he had acquired during his service in India in 1787–1796 in land, buying over 400 acres of farmland near Castle Douglas in Dumfriesshire in 1798.[back]
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