om racking torture or
enfeebling, wasting disease. As for me, what I should do without my
health I cannot conceive. All my good spirits (and I have a wonderful
supply, considering all things) come to me from my robust physical
existence, my good digestion, and perfect circulation. Heaven knows, if
my cheerfulness had not a good tough root in these, as long as these
last, it would fare ill with me; and I fear my spiritual courage and
mental energy would prove exceedingly weak in their encounter with
adverse circumstances, but for the admirable constitution with which I
have been blessed, and which serves me better than I serve myself....

On the tenth of next month I am going up to the dear and pleasant
hill-country of Massachusetts, to pay my friends a visit, which, though
I must make it very short, will prove a most acceptable season of
refreshment to my heart and spirit, from which I expect to derive
courage and cheerfulness for the rest of the year, as I shall certainly
not see any of them again till next spring, for they are about two
hundred and fifty miles away from me, which, even in this country of
quite unlimited space, is not considered exactly next-door neighborhood.

You ask after "the farm," which is much honored by your remembrance. It
is let, and we are at present living in a boarding-house in town, and I
rather think shall continue doing so; but I really do not know in the
least what is to become of me from day to day....

I am grieved to hear of the affliction of the Greys. Pray remember me
very affectionately to Lady G. Her father's illness must be indeed a
sore sorrow to her, devoted as she is to him.

My dear Granny, do not you be induced to _croak_ about England. She may
have to go through a sharp _operation_ or two; but, depend upon it, that
noble and excellent constitution is by no means vitally impaired, and
she will yet head the nations of the earth, in all great and good and
glorious things, for a long time to come, in spite of Irish rows and
Welsh _consonants_ (is there anything else in Wales? How funny a
revolution must be without a vowel in it!) ... I believe that great and
momentous changes are impending in England; and when I suggest among
them as _possible_ future events the doing away with the law of
primogeniture, hereditary legislation, and the Church establishment, of
course you will naturally say that I think England is going to the dogs
faster even than you do. But I think Englan