4112. Robert Southey to Edith May Southey,30 December 1823
Address: To/ Miss Southey
MS: Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas, Austin. ALS; 3p.
Previously published: Charles Cuthbert Southey (ed.), Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey, 6 vols (London, 1849–1850), V, pp. 157–158.
I have sent you a Bible for a New Years gift; in the hope that with the New Year you will begin the custom of reading, morning & night, the psalms & lessons for the day.
It is far from my wish that this should be imposed as a necessary & burthensome observance, or that you should <feel> dissatisfied & uneasy at omitting it, when late hours, or other accidental circumstances render it inconvenient. Only let it be your ordinary custom. You will one day understand feelingly how beneficially the time has been employed.
The way which I recommend is, I verily believe, the surest way of profiting by the scriptures. In the course of this easy & regular perusal, the system of religion appears more & more clear & coherent; its truths are felt more intimately, & its precepts & doctrines reach the heart, – as slow showers penetrate the ground. In passages which have repeatedly been heard & read, some new force, some peculiar meaning, some home-application which had before been overlooked will frequently come out; & you will find in thus recurring daily to the Bible, as you have done among the Lakes & Mountains which you love so well, – in the word of God as in his works, – beauties & effects & influences as fresh as they are inexhaustible. – I say this from experience.
May God bless the Book to the purpose for which it is xxx intended. And take you with it, my dear dear child the blessing of
Your affectionate father
Robert Southey.
