Let me hear from you soon, if you are not angry. I have been reading the Bridgewater treatise, and am now trying to understand Prout upon Chemistry. I shall be worth something at last, shall I not? Who knows but what I may die a glorious death under the pons asinorum after all? Prout (if I succeed in understanding him) does not hold that matter is infinitely divisible; and so I suppose the seeds of matter—the ultimate molecules—are a kind of tertium quid between matter and spirit. Certainly I can't believe that any kind of matter, primal or ultimate, can be indivisible, which it must according to his view.

Chalmers's treatise is, as to eloquence, surpassingly beautiful; as to matter, I could not walk with him all the way, although I longed to do it, for he walked on flowers, and under shade—'no tree on which a fine bird did not sit.' ...

Believe me, your affectionate friend,
E.B.B.

To H.S. Boyd

Sidmouth: September 14, [1834].

My dear Mr. Boyd,—I won't ask you to forgive me for not writing before, because I know very well that you would rather have not heard from me immediately.... And so, you and Mrs. Mathew have been tearing to pieces—to the very rags—all my elaborate theology! And when Mr. Young is 'strong enough,' he is to help you at your cruel work! 'The points upon which you and I differed' are so numerous, that if I really am wrong upon every one of them, Mrs. Mathew has indeed reason to 'punish me with hard thoughts.' Well, she can't help my feeling for her much esteem, although I never saw her. And if I were to see her, I would not argue with her; I would only ask her to let me love her. I am weary of controversy in religion, and should be so were I stronger and more successful in it than I am or care to be. The command is not 'argue with one another,' but 'love one another.' It is better to love than to convince. They who lie on the bosom of Jesus must lie there together!

Not a word about your book![[19]] Don't you mean to tell me anything of it? I saw a review of it—rather a satisfactory one—I think in an August number of the 'Athenaeum.' If you will look into 'Fraser's Magazine' for August, at an article entitled 'Rogueries of Tom Moore,' you will be amused with a notice of the 'Edinburgh Review's' criticism in the text, and of yourself in a note. We have had a crowded Bible meeting, and a Church Missionary and London Missionary meeting besides; and I went last Tuesday to the Exmouth Bible meeting with Mrs. Maling, Miss Taylor, and Mr. Hunter. We did not return until half-past one in the morning.... The Bishop of Barbadoes and the Dean of Winchester were walking together on the beach yesterday, making Sidmouth look quite episcopal. You would not have despised it half so much, had you been here.

Do you know any person who would like to send his or her son to Sidmouth, for the sake of the climate, and private instruction: and if you do, will you mention it to me? I am very sorry to hear of Mrs. Boyd being so unwell. Arabel had a letter two days ago from Annie, and as it mentions Mrs. Boyd's having gone to Dover, I trust that she is well again. Should she be returned, give my love to her.

The black-edged paper may make you wonder at its cause. Our dear aunt Mrs. Butler died last month at Dieppe—and died in Jesus. Miss Clarke is going, if she is not gone, to Italy for the winter.

Believe me, affectionately yours,
E.B. BARRETT.