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MS untraced; text is taken from John Wood Warter (ed.), Selections from the Letters of Robert Southey, 4 vols (London, 1856) . Previously published: John Wood Warter (ed.), Selections from the Letters of Robert Southey, 4 vols (London, 1856), III, pp. 195–197.
These letters were edited with the assistance of Ian Packer and Lynda Pratt
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Southey's spelling has not been regularized.
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Your letter followed me to Cambridge, where I received it this morning at breakfast, and a great comfort it was. For although all the intelligence which came from home had been good, still I looked uneasily for what the next post might bring. Had it not been for this sort of anxiety, which you know nothing at all about, I dare say I should have written some queer letters to you and your sisters. But I am not so comical a papa anywhere else as at home.
You, and Bell, and Bertha are all very good girls, and have written me very nice letters, which had pleased me very much. One or two of my friends who know you all three, have seen your letters, and said what good girls you were, and how nicely you wrote. Nevertheless it will still be proper for me not to forget that receipt which we used to talk about for the pickle. You and Isabel, I dare say, remember it. Very soon I shall begin buying the other things which I am to bring home, such as the books, and the prayer books, and the pretty things for Cuthbert. You may depend upon my returning the last week in June, if it please God that I continue well.
Among the comical things which I had to tell you all, was how I went to St. Paul’s Church, when a sermon was preached
for the benefit of the Children of the Clergy, on which occasion there is the grandest church music ever performed in these
kingdoms:
Yesterday I came here to dinner, and dined with Mr. White. To-day
I have been twice to church, first to hear Dr. Clarke, the traveller,
My Kate, do you know that I am taking it into serious deliberation whether I shall or shall not be made a Doctor; and
as it is said the woman who deliberates is lost,