Many thanks for your kind long letter. It brought me back to the green
before the house at Freestone, and the old schoolroom in it. I have
always felt within myself that if ever I did go again to Freestone, I
should puzzle myself and every one else by bringing back old associations
among existing things: I should have felt awkward. The place remains
quite whole in my mind: Anne Allen's damask cheek forming part of the
colouring therein. I remember a little well somewhere in the woods about
a mile from the house: and those faint reports of explosions from towards
Milford, etc., which we used to hear when we all walked out together. You
are to thank Mary Allen for her kind wishes: and tell her she need not
doubt that I wish her all good things. I enclose you as you see a little
drawing of a Suffolk farm house close here: copied from a sketch of poor
Mr. Nursey. If you think it worth giving to Mary Allen, do: it seems,
and perhaps is, very namby-pamby to send this: but she and I used to talk
of drawings together: and this will let her know that I go on just the
same as I did eight years ago. N.B. It is not intended as a nuptial
present.
Now, you need not answer this letter: as you have done remarkably well
already. I am living (did I tell you this before?) at a little cottage
close by the lawn gates, where I have my books, a barrel of beer which I
tap myself (can you tap a barrel of beer?), and an old woman to do for
me. I have also just concocted two gallons of Tar water under the
directions of Bishop Berkeley: it is to be bottled off this very day
after a careful skimming: and then drunk by those who can and will. It
is to be tried first on my old woman: if she survives, I am to begin: and
it will then gradually spread into the Parish, through England, Europe,
etc., 'as the small pebble stirs the peaceful lake.' Good people here
are much scandalized at Thirlwall's being made a Bishop: Isabella {73a}
brought home a report from a clergyman that Thirlwall had so bad a
character at Trinity that many would not associate with him. I do not
think however that I would have made him Bishop: I am all for good and
not great Bishops. Old Evans {73b} would have done better. I am become
an Oxford High Church Divine after Newman: whose sermons are the best
that ever were written in my judgment. Cecil I have read: and liked for
his good sense. Is the croft at Tenby still green: and does Mary Allen
take a turn on it in a riding habit as of old? And I remember a ravine
on the horn of the bay opposite the town where the sea rushes up. I mean
as you go on past the croft. I can walk there as in a dream. I see
Thackeray's book {73c} announced as about to be published, and I hear
Spedding has written a Review of Carlyle's Revolution in the Edinburgh. I
don't know a book more certain to evaporate away from posterity than
that, except it be supported by his other works. Parts may perhaps be
found two hundred years hence and translated into Erse by some inverted
Macpherson. 'These things seem strange,' says Herodotus, {73d} [Greek
text]. Herodotus makes few general assertions: so when he does make
them, they tell. I could talk more to you, but my paper is out. John
Allen, I rejoice in you.
_To Bernard Barton_.
BEDFORD, _Aug_. 31/40.