h my brain like water
through a sieve.

I have no doubt that from my mode of talking of different peoples, under
various systems of government, you would not suspect me of having ever
looked into the simplest treatise on political economy and similar
subjects; but I have read most of the popular expositions of those grave
matters that the press now daily puts forth; but as they, for the most
part, deal with things as they _are_, and my cogitations are chiefly as
to things as they _should be_, I do not find my studies avail me much. I
believe I wrote you word after reading the book you sent me, and
thinking it a very excellent abridged exposition of such subjects; I
still could not understand what it had to do with the theory of laws for
the division of property, or the expediency of the law of primogeniture,
and the advantages of the distinctions of rank, to the societies where
they exist. The question seems to me rather whether these remains of
feudalism have or have not outlived their uses.

By-the-by, in taking off the cover in which you had wrapped the book, I
did not perceive that you had written upon it until I had thrown it into
the fire. I assure you that at the moment I was a great deal sorrier
than if the worthy little volume itself had been grilling on the top of
the coals.

We returned here on Friday, and found my father and Adelaide going on
much as usual. Half a score of invitations, of one sort and another,
waiting for us, and London, with its grim visage, looking less lovely
than ever after the sweet, tender, wintry beauty of Bowood; where one
walked, for a whole morning at a time, among hollies and laurels and
glittering evergreens, which, by the help of the sunshine we enjoyed
while we were there, gave the lie triumphant to the dead season.

I have been nurse almost all the day. Anne, who, poor girl! has had a
long fast from her devotional privileges, went to church, and I walked
with the children to the broad gravel walk in the Regent's Park, where I
took that "exercise of agony" with you one afternoon; the day was much
the same too, bright and sunny above, and exceedingly muddy and hateful
under foot. The servants having their Christmas dinner to-day, I offered
to take entire charge of the children, if Anne liked to join the party
downstairs. She affably condescended, and they prolonged the social
meal, or their after-dinner converse, for considerably more than two
hours. Since that, I have been