good as the sight of waste and barren land reclaimed
to the uses and wants of man; to see vegetation clothe the idle
space, and the cursed and profitless soil teeming with the means of
life and bringing forth abundant produce to requite the toil that
fertilized it; to see the wilderness crowned with bounteous
increase, and the blessing of God rising from the earth to reward
the labor of His creatures. It forcibly reminds one of all that is
left undone, and might be done, with that far more precious waste
land, those multitudes of our ignorant poor, whose minds and
spirits are as dark, as profitless, as barren, as dreary, and as
dangerous, as this wild bog was formerly, and who were never
ordained to live and die like so many human morasses.... In the
evening to the theater, which was crammed from the floor to the
ceiling; they are a pleasant audience, too, and make a delightful
quantity of sympathetic noise. I did not play well, which was a
pity and a shame, because they really deserved that one should do
so; but my coadjutors were too much for me.

_Sunday, 22d, Liverpool._--I did not think there was such another
day in store for me as this. I thought all was past and over, and
had forgotten the last drop in the bitter cup.... The day was
bitter cold, and we were obliged to have a fire.

LIVERPOOL, July 22.
MY DEAR MRS. JAMESON,

I fear you are either anxious or vexed, or perhaps both, about the
arrival of your books, and my non-acknowledgment of them. They
reached me in all safety, and but for the many occupations which
swallow up my time would have been duly receipted ere this. Thank
you very much for them, for they are very elegant outside, and the
dedication page, with which I should have been most ungracious to
find any fault. The little sketch on that leaf differs from the
design you had described to me some time ago, and I felt the full
meaning of the difference. I read through your preface all in a
breath; there are many parts of it which have often been matters of
discussion between us, and I believe you know how cordially I
coincide with most of the views expressed in it. The only point in
your preliminary chapter on which I do not agree with you is the
passage in which you say that