You will think I have wholly cut you. But I wrote half a letter to you
three months ago; and mislaid it; spent some time in looking for it,
always hoping; and then some more time despairing; and we all know how
time goes when [we] have got a thing to do which we are rather lazy about
doing. As for instance, getting up in a morning. Not that writing a
letter to you is so bad as getting up; but it is not easy for mortal man
who has heard, seen, done, and thought, nothing since he last wrote, to
fill one of these big foreign sheets full as a foreign letter ought to
be. I am now returned to my dull home here after my usual pottering
about in the midland counties of England. A little Bedfordshire--a
little Northamptonshire--a little more folding of the hands--the same
faces--the same fields--the same thoughts occurring at the same turns of
road--this is all I have to tell of; nothing at all added--but the summer
gone. My garden is covered with yellow and brown leaves; and a man is
digging up the garden beds before my window, and will plant some roots
and bulbs for next year. My parsons come and smoke with me, etc. 'The
round of life from hour to hour'--alluding doubtless to a mill-horse.
Alfred is reported to be still at Park House, where he has been
sojourning for two months, I think; but he never writes me a word.
Hydropathy has done its worst; he writes the names of his friends in
water. . . . I spent two days in London with old Morton about five weeks
ago; and pleasant days they were. The rogue bewitches me with his wit
and honest speech. He also staid some while at Park House, while Alfred
was there, and managed of course to frighten the party occasionally with
some of his sallies. He often writes to me; and very good his letters
are all of them.
When do you mean to write me another? Morton told me in his last that he
had heard from Brotherton you were gone, or going, to Naples. I dare say
this sheet of mine will never get to your hands. But if it does, let me
hear from you. Is Italy becoming stale to you? Are you going to Cairo
for fresh sensations? Thackeray went off in a steamboat about the time
the French were before Mogadore; he was to see those coasts and to visit
Jerusalem! Titmarsh at Jerusalem will certainly be an era in
Christianity. But I suppose he will soon be back now. Spedding is yet
in his highlands, I believe, considering Grouse and Bacon.
I expect to run up to London some time during the winter just to tell
over old friends' faces and get a sup of music and painting. I have
bought very few more pictures lately; and [heard] no music but
Mendelssohn's M. Night's Dream. The overture, which was published long
ago, is the best part; but there is a very noble triumphal march also.
Now I feel just in the same fix as I did in that sheet of paper whose
fate is uncertain. But if I don't put in a word more, yet this shall go,
I am determined. Only consider how it is a matter of necessity that I
should have nothing to say. If you could see this place of Boulge! You
who sit and survey marble palaces rising out of cypress and olive. There
is a dreadful vulgar ballad, composed by Mr. Balfe, and sung with the
most unbounded applause by Miss Rainforth,
'I dreamt that I dwelt in marble Halls,'
which is sung and organed at every corner in London. I think you may
imagine what kind of flowing 6/8 time of the last degree of imbecility it
is. The words are written by Mr. Bunn! Arcades ambo.
I say we shall see you over in England before long: for I rather think
you want an Englishman to quarrel with sometimes. I mean quarrel in the
sense of a good strenuous difference of opinion, supported on either side
by occasional outbursts of spleen. Come and let us try. You used to
irritate my vegetable blood sometimes.
_To Bernard Barton_.
[GELDESTONE, _Nov_. 27, 1844]