tion, Publish or not publish? lay many
months undecided.

Meanwhile his own feeling was now set more and more towards Poetry;
and in spite of symptoms and dissuasions, and perverse prognostics of
outward wind and weather, he was rallying all his force for a downright
struggle with it; resolute to see which _was_ the stronger. It must be
owned, he takes his failures in the kindliest manner; and goes along,
bating no jot of heart or hope. Perhaps I should have more admired this
than I did! My dissuasions, in that case, might have been fainter. But
then my sincerity, which was all the use of my poor counsel in assent
or dissent, would have been less. He was now furthermore busy with a
_Tragedy of Strafford_, the theme of many failures in Tragedy; planning
it industriously in his head; eagerly reading in _Whitlocke, Rushworth_
and the Puritan Books, to attain a vesture and local habitation for it.
Faithful assiduous studies I do believe;--of which, knowing my stubborn
realism, and savage humor towards singing by the Thespian or other
methods, he told me little, during his visits that summer.

The advance of the dark weather sent him adrift again; to Torquay,
for this winter: there, in his old Falmouth climate, he hoped to do
well;--and did, so far as well-doing was readily possible, in that sad
wandering way of life. However, be where he may, he tries to work "two
or three hours in the morning," were it even "with a lamp," in bed,
before the fires are lit; and so makes something of it. From abundant
Letters of his now before me, I glean these two or three small glimpses;
sufficient for our purpose at present. The general date is "Tor, near
Torquay:"--

_To Mrs. Charles Fox, Falmouth_.

_Tor, November 30th_, 1840.--I reached this place on Thursday; having,
after much hesitation, resolved to come here, at least for the next
three weeks,--with some obscure purpose of embarking, at the New Year,
from Falmouth for Malta, and so reaching Naples, which I have not seen.
There was also a doubt whether I should not, after Christmas, bring my
family here for the first four months of the year. All this, however,
is still doubtful. But for certain inhabitants of Falmouth and its
neighborhood, this place would be far more attractive than it. But I
have here also friends, whose kindness, like much that I met with last
winter, perpetually makes me wonder at the stock of benignity in human
nature. A brother of my fr