walk home. For all which idle ease I think I must be
damned. I begin to have dreadful suspicions that this fruitless way of
life is not looked upon with satisfaction by the open eyes above. One
really ought to dip for a little misery: perhaps however all this ease is
only intended to turn sour by and bye, and so to poison one by the very
nature of self-indulgence. Perhaps again as idleness is so very great a
trial of virtue, the idle man who keeps himself tolerably chaste, etc.,
may deserve the highest reward; the more idle, the more deserving. Really
I don't jest: but I don't propound these things as certain.

There is a fair review of Shelley in the new Edinburgh: saying the truth
on many points where the truth was not easily enunciated, as I believe.

Now, dear sir, I have said all I have to say: and Carlyle says, you know,
it is dangerous to attempt to say more. So farewell for the present: if
you like to write soon, direct to the Post Office, Bedford: if not, I
shall soon be at Woodbridge to anticipate the use of your pen.

HALVERSTOWN, {62} _Sunday_, Oct. 20, [1839].

MY DEAR SIR,

I am very glad that you lifted yourself at last from your mahogany desk,
and took such a trip as you describe in your last letter. I don't think
you could have made a better in the same given space of time. It is some
years since I have seen the Castle at Windsor, except from Eton. The
view from the Terrace is the noblest I know of, taking it with all its
associations together. Gray's Ode rises up into the mind as one looks
around--does it not?--a sure proof that, however people may condemn
certain conceits and expressions in the poem, the spirit of it is
genuine. 'Ye distant spires, ye antique towers'--very large and noble,
like the air that breathes upon one as one looks down along the view. My
brother John told me he thought the Waterloo gallery very fine: the
portraits by Sir Thomas almost as fine as Vandyke. You saw them, of
course. You say nothing of having seen the National Gallery in London:
indeed I rather fear it is closed these two months. This is a great loss
to you: the Rubens landscape you would never have forgot. Thank you for
the picture of my dear old Bredfield which you have secured for me: it is
most welcome. Poor Nursey once made me a very pretty oil sketch of it:
but I gave it to Mr. Jenney. By all means have it engraved for the
pocket book: it is well worthy. Some of the tall ash trees about