ou and my dear old Morton are, and whether you dine and smoke
together as heretofore. If you won't write, tell him to do so: or make
up a letter between you. What new pictures are there to be seen? Have
you settled yet whether spirit can exist separately from matter? Are you
convinced of the truth of Murphy's Almanac this year? Have you learned
any more Astronomy? I live on in a very seedy way, reading occasionally
in books which every one else has gone through at school: and what I do
read is just in the same way as ladies work: to pass the time away. For
little remains in my head. I dare say you think it very absurd that an
idle man like me should poke about here in the country, when I might be
in London seeing my friends: but such is the humour of the beast. But it
is not always to be the case: I shall see your good physiognomy one of
these days, and smoke one of your cigars, and listen to Morton saying
fine and wild things, 'startling the dull ear of night' with paradoxes
that perhaps are truisms in the world where spirits exist independent of
matter. You two men have made great commotion in my mind, and left your
marks upon it, I can tell you: more than most of the books I read. What
is Alfred about, and where is he? Present my homage to him. Don't you
rather rejoice in the pickle the King of the French finds himself in? I
don't know why, but I have a sneaking dislike of the old knave. How he
must pine to summon up Talleyrand's Ghost, and what a Ghost it must be,
wherever it is!

_To John Allen_.

[28 _April_, 1839.]

MY DEAR ALLEN,

Some one from this house is going to London: and I will try and write you
some lines now in half an hour before dinner: I am going out for the
evening to my old lady who teaches me the names of the stars, and other
chaste information. {59} You see, Master John Allen, that if I do not
come to London (and I have no thought of going yet) and you will not
write, there is likely to be an end of our communication: not by the way
that I am never to go to London again: but not just yet. Here I live
with tolerable content: perhaps with as much as most people arrive at,
and what if one were properly grateful one would perhaps call perfect
happiness. Here is a glorious sunshiny day: all the morning I read about
Nero in Tacitus lying at full length on a bench in the garden: a
nightingale singing, and some red anemones eyeing the sun manfully not
far off. A funny mixture all