d
mollify the air into a happier sort of substance than that you breathe
in London.

"The large vessels that had been lying here for weeks, waiting for a
wind, have now sailed; two of them for the East Indies, and having three
hundred soldiers on board. It is a curious thing that the long-continued
westerly winds had so prevented the coasters arriving, that the Town was
almost on the point of a famine as to bread. The change has brought in
abundance of flour.--The people in general seem extremely comfortable;
their houses are excellent, almost all of stone. Their habits are very
little agricultural, but mining and fishing seem to prosper with
them. There are hardly any gentry here; I have not seen more than two
gentlemen's carriages in the Town; indeed I think the nearest one comes
from five miles off....

"I have been obliged to try to occupy myself with Natural Science, in
order to give some interest to my walks; and have begun to feel my way
in Geology. I have now learnt to recognize three or four of the common
kinds of stone about here, when I see them; but I find it stupid work
compared with Poetry and Philosophy. In the mornings, however, for an
hour or so before I get up, I generally light my candle, and try to
write some verses; and since I have been here, I have put together short
poems, almost enough for another small volume. In the evenings I have
gone on translating some of Goethe. But six or seven hours spent on my
legs, in the open air, do not leave my brain much energy for thinking.
Thus my life is a dull and unprofitable one, but still better than it
would have been in Madeira or on board ship. I hear from Susan every
day, and write to her by return of post."

At Falmouth Sterling had been warmly welcomed by the well-known
Quaker family of the Foxes, principal people in that place, persons of
cultivated opulent habits, and joining to the fine purities and pieties
of their sect a reverence for human intelligence in all kinds; to whom
such a visitor as Sterling was naturally a welcome windfall. The family
had grave elders, bright cheery younger branches, men and women; truly
amiable all, after their sort: they made a pleasant image of home for
Sterling in his winter exile. "Most worthy, respectable and highly
cultivated people, with a great deal of money among them," writes
Sterling in the end of February; "who make the place pleasant to me.
They are connected with all the large Quaker circle, the Gurne