It is settled now that we go to Exeter by coach, and now that we have given up our pretty sea trip to Ilfracombe, the weather has become lovely—perverse creature!—but I am glad we are going away in every way.

Saturday, Bristol, July 23d. ... We started at eight, and taking the whole coach to ourselves as we do, I think traveling by a public conveyance the best mode of getting over the road. They run so rapidly; there is so little time lost, and so much trouble with one's luggage saved. The morning was gray and soft and promised a fine day, but broke its promise at the end of our second stage, and began to pelt with rain, which it continued to do the live-long blessed day. We could see, however, that the country we were passing through was charming. One or two of the cottages by the roadside, half-smothered in vine and honeysuckle, reminded me of Lady Juliana,[B] who, when she said she could live in a desert with her lover, thought that it was a "sort of place full of roses." ... These laborers' cottages were certainly the poor dwellings of very poor people, but there was nothing unsightly, repulsive, or squalid about them—on the contrary, a look of order, of tidy neatness about the little houses, that added the peculiarly English element of comfort and cleanliness to the picturesqueness of their fragrant festoons of flowery drapery, hung over them by the sweet season. The little plots of flower-garden one mass of rich color; the tiny strip of kitchen-garden, well stocked and trimly kept, beside it; the thriving fruitful orchard stretching round the whole; and beyond, the rich cultivated land rolling its waving corn-fields, already tawny and sunburnt, in mellow contrast with the smooth green pasturages, with their deep-shadowed trees and bordering lines of ivied hawthorn hedgerows, marking boundary-lines of division without marring the general prospect—a lovely landscape that sang aloud of plenty, industry, and thrift. I wonder if any country is more blessed of God than this precious little England? I think it is like one of its own fair, nobly blooming, vigorous women; her temper—that's the climate—not perfection, to be sure (but, after all, the old praise of it is true; it admits of more constant and regular out-of-door exercise than any other); the religion it professes, pure; the morality it practises, pure, probably by comparison with that of other powerful and wealthy nations. Oh, I trust that neither reform nor its extreme, revolution, will have power to injure this healthily, heartily constituted land....

[B] In Miss Ferrie's novel, "Marriage."

Exeter, July 24th, 1831.

Dearest H——,

We arrived here last night, or rather evening, at half-past six o'clock, and I found your letter, which, having waited for me, shall not wait for my answer....

Thank you for John's translation of the German song, the original of which I know and like very much. The thoughts it suggested to you must constantly arise in all of us. I believe that in these matters I feel all that you do, but not with the same intensity. To adore is most natural to the mind contemplating beauty, might, and majesty beyond its own powers; to implore is most natural to the heart oppressed with suffering, or agitated with hopes that it cannot accomplish, or fears from which it cannot escape. The difference between natural and revealed religion is that the one worships the loveliness and power it perceives, and the other the goodness, mercy, and truth in which it believes. The one prays for exemption from pain and enjoyment of happiness for body and mind in this present existence; the other for deliverance from spiritual evils, or the possession of spiritual graces, by which the soul is fitted for that better life toward which it tends....

I do not think "Juliet" has written to you hitherto, and I am rather affronted at your calling me so. I have little or no sympathy with, though much compassion for, that Veronese young person.... There is but one sentiment of hers that I can quote with entire self-application, and that is—

"I have no joy of this contract to-night;
It is too rash, too unadvised, too sudden."

In spite of which the foolish child immediately secures her lover's word, appoints the time for meeting, and makes every arrangement for following up the declaration she thought too sudden by its as sudden execution. Poor Juliet! I am very sorry for her, but do not like to be called after her, and do not think I am like her. I have been working very hard every day since you left Bristol (my belief is that Juliet was very idle). I am sorry to say I find my playing very hard work; but easy work, if there is such a thing, would not be best for me just now.