forting,
as well as the element itself, though it is a mere suggestion of the
spiritual wells by which one may find rest and refreshment, and pause
and ponder on this dusty life's way of ours.

I rejoice the distress in Ireland is less than was anticipated, and am
sorry that I cannot sympathize with your nephew's political views
[Colonel Taylor was all his life a consistent and fervent Tory]....
Politics appear to me, in a free government, to be the especial and
proper occupation of a wealthy landowner; and, in such a country as
Ireland, I am sure they might furnish a noble field for the exercise of
the finest intelligence and the most devoted patriotism, as well as fill
the time with occupation of infinite interest, both of business and
benevolence. I should like to be a man with such a work....

My sister's little girl is lovely; she runs about, but does not speak
yet. God bless you, my dear friend. Give my love to dear Dorothy. If I
can, I will come and see you both at Torquay this next winter. I hope to
be in England in November.

Ever yours,
FANNY.

FRASCATI, Wednesday, July 1st, 1846.

... You know of old that the slightest word of blame from you is worse
than hot sealing-wax on my skin to me, and that to my self-justifications
there is no end. My dear friend, are mental perplexity and despondency,
moral difficulty, spiritual apathy, and a general bitter internal
struggle with existence, less real trials, less positive troubles, than
the most afflicting circumstances generally so classed? I almost doubt
it. It may be more difficult to formulate that species of anguish in
words, and it may seem a less positive and substantial grief than some
others, but the plagues of the soul are _real_ tortures, and I set few
sufferings above them, few difficulties and few pains beyond those that
have their source not in the outward dispensation of events, but in the
inward conditions of our physical and moral constitutions.

Comparing one lot with another, does not rather the equality of the
general doom of trouble and sorrow, of difficulty and struggle, witness
the impartiality with which we are governed and our several fates
distributed to us? The self-assured and self-relying strength of my
constitution (I mean by that my character as well as the temperament
from which it results) knows not