am looking forward with delight
to hours of quiet study, and the mental hoards in store for me. I am
busy preparing to leave town; I am at present, and have been ever since
my marriage, staying in the house of my brother-in-law, and feel not a
little anxious to be in a home of my own. But painters, and carpenters,
and upholsterers are dirty divinities of a lower order, not to be moved,
or hastened, by human invocations (or even imprecations), and we must
e'en bide their time.

I please myself much in the fancying of furniture, and fitting up of the
house; and I look forward to a garden, green-house, and dairy, among my
future interests, to each of which I intend to addict myself zealously.

My pets are a horse, a bird, and a black squirrel, and I do not see
exactly what more a reasonable woman could desire. Human companionship,
indeed, at present, I have not much of; but as like will to like, I do
not despair of attracting towards me, by-and-by, some of my own kind,
with whom I may enjoy pleasant intercourse; but you can form no
idea--none--none--of the intellectual dearth and drought in which I am
existing at present.

I care nothing for politics here, ... though I wish this great Republic
well. But what are the rulers and guides of the people doing in England?
I see the abolition of the Peerage has been suggested, but, I presume,
as a bad joke.... If I were a man in England, I should like to devote my
life to the cause of national progress, carried on through party
politics and public legislation; and if I was not a Christian, I think,
every now and then, I should like to shoot Brougham.... You speak of
coming to this country: but I do not think you would like it; though you
are much respected, admired, and loved here.

I have not met Miss Martineau yet, but I am afraid she is not likely to
like me much. I admire her genius greatly, but have an inveterate
tendency to worship at all the crumbling shrines, which she and her
employers seem intent upon pulling down; and I think I should be an
object of much superior contempt to that enlightened and clever female
Radical and Utilitarian.

I was introduced to Mrs. Austin some years ago, and she impressed me
more, in many ways, than any of the remarkable women I have known. Her
husband's constant ill-health kept her in a state of comparative
seclusion, and deprived London society of a person of uncommon original
mental power and acquired knowledge; in most respects I t