I was not very happy at Oxford. The beautiful place impressed me sadly; but that was because I was very unwell and sad while I was there. The weather was horrible; a dark greasy fog pervaded the sky the whole time. The roads were so muddy as to render riding odious, and the streets so slimy that walking was really dangerous as well as disagreeable. Still, I saw some things with which I was much charmed, and have no doubt that, if I could but have had an hour's daylight, I should have been delighted with the place altogether.
VISIT TO OXFORD. E—— S—— came down from London on Thursday morning, and took me to see the fine collection of drawings by Raphael and Michael Angelo at the Taylor Institute, and I spent three hours there in a state of great enjoyment. I wandered in ignorant wonderment through the Bodleian Library and the Ashmolean Museum, with A—— M——, who seemed quite as little familiar with the learned treasures of the place as myself. He took me to see his own college, Christ Church, with which, especially the great dining-hall, I was enchanted; and with the fine avenue at the back of the colleges, and the tower and cloisters of Magdalen.
I have no doubt I should enjoy another visit to Oxford very much; but I was miserable while I was there, and could not do justice to the beauty of the place. The inn where I stayed was dirty and uncomfortable, and dearer than any I have yet stayed at. My sitting-room was dingy and dark, and I was glad when I came into this large light sitting-room of ours again, out of which, however, they have removed the piano—a loss I have not thought it worth while to replace, as I go to Cheltenham on Wednesday afternoon.... You ask what I would sell my "English Tragedy" for. Why, anything anybody would give me for it. It cannot be acted, and nobody reads plays nowadays—small blame to them....
Ever as ever yours,
Fanny.
Cheltenham, Thursday, 12th.
My dearest Hal,
I found your loving greeting on my arrival here yesterday evening. I am troubled at your account of yourself.... What things these bodies of ours are! I sometimes think that, when we lay them down in the earth, we shall have taken leave of all our sinfulness; and yet there are sins of the soul that do not lodge in the flesh, though the greater proportion of our sins, I think, do: and when I reflect how little control we have over our physical circumstances, what with inherited disease and infirmity, and infirmity and disease incurred through the ignorant misguidance of others during our youth, and our own ignorant misdirection afterwards, I think the miseries we reap are punishment enough for much consequent sin; and that, once freed from the "body of this death," we shall cease to be subject to sin in anything like the same degree.... It is very muddy underfoot; but if the sky does not fall, I shall ride out on my old post-horse at twelve o'clock.
Certainly your question, as to where the wise men are who are to encounter the difficulties of legislation for this country next spring, was an exclamation—a shriek—and not an interrogation, addressed to me at any rate; for though I suppose God's quiver is never empty of arrows, and that some are always found to do His work, it may be that saving this country from a gradual decline of greatness and decay of prosperity may not be work for which He has appointed hands, and which therefore will not be done....
I declined being in the room we formerly occupied in this house, because I feared, now the days are so much shorter, that it would be inconveniently dark. I am in a charming light room, with three windows down to the ground, and a bewitching paper of pale green, with slender gold rods running up it, all wound round with various colored convolvuli. It's one of the prettiest papers I ever saw, and makes me very happy. You know how subject I am even to such an influence as that of a ridiculous wall-paper....