I sometimes think that a pilgrim's life is the wisest--at least, the most congenial to the 'uses of this world.' We give our sympathies and associations to our hills and fields, and then the providence of God gives _them_ to another, It is better, perhaps, to keep a stricter _identity_, by calling only our thoughts our own.
Was there anybody in the world who ever loved London for itself? Did Dr. Johnson, in his paradise of Fleet Street, love the pavement and the walls? I doubt _that_--whether I ought to do so or not--though I don't doubt at all that one may be contented and happy here, and love much _in_ the place. But the place and the privileges of it don't mix together in one's love, as is done among the hills and by the seaside.
I or Henrietta must have told you that one of my privileges has been to see Wordsworth twice. He was very kind to me, and let me hear his conversation. I went with him and Miss Mitford to Chiswick, and thought all the way that I must certainly be dreaming. I saw her almost every day of her week's visit to London (this was all long ago, while you were in France); and she, who overflows with warm affections and generous benevolences, showed me every present and absent kindness, professing to love me, and asking me to write to her. Her novel is to be published soon after Christmas, and I believe a new tragedy is to appear about the same time, 'under the protection of Mr. Forrest.' Papa has given me the first two volumes of Wordsworth's new edition. The engraving in the first is his _own face_. You might think me affected if I told you all I felt in seeing the living face. His manners are very simple, and his conversation not at all _prominent_--if you quite understand what I mean by _that_. I do myself, for I saw at the same time Landor--the brilliant Landor!--and _felt_ the difference between great genius and eminent talent; All these visions have passed now. I hear and see nothing, except my doves and the fireplace, and am doing little else than [_words torn out_] write all day long. And then people ask me what I _mean_ in [_words torn out_]. I hope you were among the six who understood or half understood my 'Poet's Vow'--that is, if you read it at all. Uncle Hedley made a long pause at the first part. But I have been reading, too, Sheridan Knowles's play of the 'Wreckers.' It is full of passion and pathos, and made me shed a great many tears. How do you get on with the reading society? Do you see much or anything of Lady Margaret Cocks, from whom I never hear now? I promised to let her have 'Ion,' if I could, before she left Brighton, but the person to whom it was lent did not return it to me in time. Will you tell her this, if you do see her, and give her my kind regards at the same time? Dear Bell was so sorry not to have seen you. If she had, you would have thought her looking _very_ well, notwithstanding the thinness--perhaps, in some measure, on account of it--and in _eminent_ spirits. I have not seen her in such spirits for very, very long. And there she is, down at Torquay, with the Hedleys and Butlers, making quite a colony of it, and everybody, in each several letter, grumbling in an undertone at the dullness of the place. What would _I_ give to see the waves once more! But perhaps if I were there, I should grumble too. It is a happiness to them to be _together_, and that, I am sure, they all feel....