men don't mind bad preaching; they have a
general taste for sermons, and, like children with sweeties, will
swallow bad ones if they cannot get good. "We have a natural turn
for religion," as A.F. said of me; but men, I think, get a not
unnatural turn against it when they hear it ill advocated....

The day has been lovely, and from my perch among the clouds here I
am looking down upon a lovely view. Following the irregular line of
buildings of the street, the eye suddenly becomes embowered in a
thick rich valley of foliage, beyond which a hill rises, whose
sides are covered with ripening corn-fields, meadows of vivid
green, and fields where the rich red color of the earth contrasts
beautifully with the fresh hedgerows and tall, dark elm trees,
whose shadows have stretched themselves for evening rest down in
the low rosy sunset. It is all still and bright, and the Sabbath
bells come up to me over it all with intermitting sweetness, like
snatches of an interrupted angels' chorus, floating hither and
thither about the earth.

_Monday._--We contrived to get some saddle-horses, and rode out
into the beautiful country round Exeter, but the preface to our
poem was rather dry prose. We rode for about an hour between
powdery hedges all smothered in dust, up the steepest of hills, and
under the hottest of suns; but we had our reward when we halted at
the top, and looked down upon a magnificent panorama of land and
water, hill and dale, broad smiling meadows, and dark shadowy
woodland--a vast expanse of various beauty, over which the eye
wandered and paused in slow contentment. As we came leisurely down
the opposite side of the hill, we met a gypsy woman, and I reined
up my horse and listened to my fortune: "I have a friend abroad who
is very fond of me." I hope so. "I have a relation far abroad who
is very fond of me too." I know so. "I shall live long." More is
the pity. "I shall marry and have three children." Quite enough. "I
shall take easily to love, but it will not break my heart." I am
glad to hear that. "I shall cross the sea before I see London
again." Ah! I am afraid not. "The end of my summer will be happier
than its beginning"--and that may very easily be. For that I gave
my prophetess a shilling. Oh, Zingarella! my blessing on your black
e