Page:Blanchard on L. E. L.pdf/72

72 five thousand a year to settle down in the country: I miss the new books, the new faces, the new subjects of conversation—and I miss very much the old friends I have left behind."

The following is from the same place, and describes more minutely her country life while visiting, as she occasionly did, the relations she respected. These specimens are from letters somewhat later, addressed to one whose opinions she held in high esteem, and to whose views, in many things, she was anxious to conform.

"l am growing quite rustic—eating my breakfast (that is really an undertaking), walking, and learning to work in worsted. In short, acquiring a taste for innocent pleasures. . . . . I am refreshing my Tory principles, and beginning to doubt whether republics, equality, and our old favourites, are not very visionary, and somewhat reprehensible. You know my mirror-like propensities. The roses are still in blossom, and I have made desperate friends with the cousin who is their special disposer.

"Talk of springs in deserts, roses in December, and stars, when only one is shining in the sky, I believe them to be all allegories, typifying a letter from London. Oh, ! Mr. Leigh Hunt says prettily of some Italian name, that he cannot write it without pleasure. I say the same of London! When I have told you that I stay till five o'clock reading or writing, or getting exceedingly tired of myself, I have exhausted my matins. As to vespers, why I dress for dinner, and am company till bed-time. Ours is a musical house. There are pianos, harps, flutes, psaltery, and dulcimer, besides musical voices, and all played upon. I have not been out of the house, excepting to church; not a