I had a note from Miss Florence Nightingale yesterday. I was much pleased with her. There is a loftiness of mind about her which is well expressed by her form and manner. Glad you are pleased with the Westminster. I do think it a rich number—matter for a fortnight's reading and thought. Lewes has not half done it justice in the Leader. To my mind the "Niebuhr" article is as good as any of them. If you could see me in my quiet nook! I am half ashamed of being in such clover, both spiritually and materially, while some of my friends are on the dusty highways, without a tuft of grass or a flower to cheer them. A letter from you will be delightful. We seem to have said very little to each other lately. But I always know—rejoice to know—that there is the same Sara for me as there is the same green earth and arched sky, when I am good and wise enough to like the best thing.
Letter to Charles Bray, 21st July, 1852.
Do not be anxious about me—there is no cause. I am profiting, body and mind, from quiet walks and talks with nature, gathering "lady's bedstraw" and "rest-harrow," and other pretty things; picking up shells (not in the Newtonian sense, but literally); reading Aristotle, to find out what is the chief good; and eating mutton-chops, that I may have strength to pursue it. If you insist on my writing about "emotions," why, I must get some up expressly for the purpose. But I must own I would rather not, for it is the grand wish and object of my life to get rid of them as far as possible, seeing they have already had more than their share of my nervous energy. I shall not be in town on the 2d of August—at least, I pray Heaven to forbid it.
Mrs. Bray paid a visit to Broadstairs from the 3d to the 12th August, and the next letter is addressed to her.
Letter to Mrs. Bray, Thursday, 14th (?) Aug. 1852.
Are you really the better for having been here? Since you left I have been continually regretting that I could not make your visit pleasanter. I was irritable and out of sorts; but you have an apparatus for secreting happiness—that's it. Providence, seeing that I wanted weaning from this place, has sent a swarm of harvest-bugs and lady-birds. These, with the half-blank, half-dissipated feeling which comes on after having companions and losing them, make me think of returning to London on Saturday week with more resignation than I have felt before. I am very well and "plucky"—a word which I propose to substitute for happy, as more truthful.
Letter to Mrs. Peter Taylor, 19th Aug. 1852.
For the last two months I have been at this pretty, quiet place, which "David Copperfield" has made classic, far away from London noise and smoke.
I am sorry now that I brought with me Fox's "Lectures," which I had not managed to read before I left town. But I shall return thither at the end of next week, and I will at once forward the volume to Gary Lane.
One sees no novels less than a year old at the sea-side, so I am unacquainted with the "Blithedale Romance," except through the reviews, which have whetted my curiosity more than usual. Hawthorne is a grand favorite of mine, and I shall be sorry if he do not go on surpassing himself. It is sad to hear of your only going out to consult a physician. Illness seems to me the one woe for which there is no comfort—no compensation. But perhaps you find it otherwise, for you have a less rebellious spirit than I, and suffering seems to make you look all the more gentle.