I wrote a good bit of a letter to you three weeks ago: but, being non-
plussed suddenly, tore it up. Lusia says she has had a letter from Mrs.
Allen, telling how you had a troublesome and even dangerous passage to
Tenby: but that there you arrived at last. And there I suppose you are.
The _veteris vestigia flammae_, or old pleasant recollections of our
being together at that place make me begin another sheet to you. I am
almost convicted in my own mind of ingratitude for not having travelled
long ago to Pembrokeshire, to show my most kind friends of Freestone that
I remember their kindness, and that they made my stay so pleasant as to
make me wish to test their hospitality again. Nothing but my besetting
indolence (the strongest thing about me) could have prevented my doing
this. I should like much to see Mr. and Mrs. Allen again, and Carew
Castle, and walk along the old road traversed by you and me several times
between Freestone and Tenby. Does old Penelly Top stand where it did,
faintly discernible in these rainy skies? Do you sit ever upon that rock
that juts out by Tenby harbour, where you and I sat one day seven years
ago, and quoted G. Herbert? Lusia tells me also that nice Mary Allen is
to be married to your brother--Charles, I think. She is really one of
the pleasantest remembrances of womanhood I have. I suppose she sits
still in an upper room, with an old turnip of a watch (tell her I
remember this) on the table beside her as she reads wholesome books. As
I write, I remember different parts of the house and the garden, and the
fields about. Is it absolutely _that_ Mary Allen that is to become Mrs.
Charles Allen? Pray write, and let me hear of this from yourself.
Another thing also: are you to become our Rector in Sussex? This is
another of Lusia's scandals. I rather hope it is true: but not quite.
Lusia is pretty well: better, I think, than when she first came down from
London. . . . She makes herself tolerably happy down here: and wishes to
exert herself: which is the highest wish a FitzGerald can form. I go on
as usual, and in a way that needs no explanation to you: reading a
little, drawing a little, playing a little, smoking a little, etc. I
have got hold of Herodotus now: the most interesting of all Historians.
But I find the disadvantage of being so ill-grounded and bad a scholar: I
can get at the broad sense: but all the delicacies (in which so much of
the beauty and character of an author lie) escape me sadly. The more I
read, the more I feel this. But what does it all signify? Time goes on,
and we get older; and whether my idleness comprehends the distinctions of
the 1st and 2nd Aorist will not be noted much in the Book of Life, either
on this or the other side of the leaf. Here is a letter written on this
Sunday Night, July 12, 1840. And it shall go to-morrow. My kind
remembrances to Mrs. Allen: and (I beg you to transmit them) to all my
fore-known friends at Freestone. And believe me yours now as I have been
and hope to be ever affectionately,