h,
clothes, and furniture, all are spoilt. It is well that the women are
not very delicate, or they would only love their husbands because they
were their husbands. Perhaps, you may add, that the remark need not be
confined to so small a part of the world; and, _entre nous_, I am of the
same opinion. You must not term this innuendo saucy, for it does not
come home.

If I had not determined to write I should have found my confinement here,
even for three or four days, tedious. I have no books; and to pace up
and down a small room, looking at tiles overhung by rocks, soon becomes
wearisome. I cannot mount two hundred steps to walk a hundred yards many
times in the day. Besides, the rocks, retaining the heat of the sun, are
intolerably warm. I am, nevertheless, very well; for though there is a
shrewdness in the character of these people, depraved by a sordid love of
money which repels me, still the comparisons they force me to make keep
my heart calm by exercising my understanding.

Everywhere wealth commands too much respect, but here almost exclusively;
and it is the only object pursued, not through brake and briar, but over
rocks and waves; yet of what use would riches be to me, I have sometimes
asked myself, were I confined to live in such in a spot? I could only
relieve a few distressed objects, perhaps render them idle, and all the
rest of life would be a blank.

My present journey has given fresh force to my opinion that no place is
so disagreeable and unimproving as a country town. I should like to
divide my time between the town and country; in a lone house, with the
business of farming and planting, where my mind would gain strength by
solitary musing, and in a metropolis to rub off the rust of thought, and
polish the taste which the contemplation of nature had rendered just.
Thus do we wish as we float down the stream of life, whilst chance does
more to gratify a desire of knowledge than our best laid plans. A degree
of exertion, produced by some want, more or less painful, is probably the
price we must all pay for knowledge. How few authors or artists have
arrived at eminence who have not lived by their employment?

I was interrupted yesterday by business, and was prevailed upon to dine
with the English vice-consul. His house being open to the sea, I was
more at large; and the hospitality of the table pleased me, though the
bottle was rather too freely pushed about. Their manner of entertaining