I had a sweet walk home last night, and found the Claptonians, with their fair guest, a Miss Mourgue, very well. My sisters send their amitiés, and will write in a few days.
This morning I returned to town. It has been the finest day imaginable. A solemn mildness was diffused throughout the blue horizon; its light was clear and distinct rather than dazzling. The serene beams of the autumnal sun, gilded hills, variegated woods, glittering spires, ruminating herds, bounding flocks, all combined to enchant the eyes, expand the heart, and
"Chace all sorrow but despair."
In the midst of such a scene no lesser grief can prevent our sympathy with Nature. A calmness, a benevolent disposition seizes us with sweet, insinuating power. The very brute creation seems sensible of these beauties; there is a species of mild cheerfulness in the face of a lamb which I have but indifferently expressed in a corner of my paper, and a demure, contented look in an ox, which, in the fear of expressing still worse, I leave unattempted.
Business calls me away. I must dispatch my letter. Yet what does it contain?—no matter. You like anything better than news. Indeed, you never told me so; but I have an intuitive knowledge upon the subject, from the sympathy which I have constantly perceived in the taste of Julia and cher Jean. What is it to you or me—
If here in the city we have nothing but riot,
If the Spital-field weavers can't be kept quiet,
If the weather is fine, or the streets should be dirty,
Or if Mr. Dick Wilson died aged of thirty?
But if I was to hearken to the versifying grumbling I feel within me, I should fill my paper and not have room left to entreat that you would plead my cause to Honora more eloquently than the enclosed letter has the power of doing. Apropos of verses, you desire me to recollect my random description of the engaging appearance of the charming Mrs. ----. Here it is, at your service:
Then rustling and bustling the lady comes down,
With a flaming red face, and a broad yellow gown,
And a hobbling out-of-breath gait, and a frown.
This little French cousin of ours, Delarise, was my sister Mary's playfellow at Paris. His sprightliness engages my sisters extremely. Doubtless they talk much of him to you in their letters. How sorry I am to bid you adieu! Oh, let me not be forgot by the friends most dear to you at Lichfield! Lichfield! Ah! of what magic letters is that little word composed! How graceful it looks when it is written! Let nobody talk to me of its original meaning,[88] "The field of blood!" Oh, no such thing! It is the field of joy! "The beautiful city that lifts her fair head in the valley and says, I am, and there is none beside me!" Who says she is vain? Julia will not say so, nor yet Honora, and least of all their devoted
J. André.