1262. Robert Southey to Charles Watkin Williams Wynn, 18 January 1807 ⁠* 

My dear Wynn

I shall congratulate, & not console you, tho you certainly seem by your mode of announcing the sex to be fully sensible that the Masculine Gender is worth more worthy than the feminine. [1]  Girls are best till they become women – because you do not lose them till they you lose them altogether – then I confess that however desirable it is that they should be married, it must be painful to see a child transplanted from her fathers house to a husbands. The next must be a boy, & then there will be a great fitness in having an elder for him. I am heartily rejoiced that all is well, & heartily give you joy. The birth of a first child opens a mine in the human heart of what is more precious than gold.

Jan^y 18. 1807