Who would imagine that I had just finished a summer of mountain solitude, succeeding a winter's meditation on Swedenborg's philosophy, and that such fruit was of it all?
By the way, tell me how it was that Paris did harm to Moore?
Mentally, was it, and morally, or in the matter of the body?
I have not seen the biography yet.

Italy keeps us behind in new books.

But the extracts given in newspapers displease me through the ignoble tone of 'doing honour to the lord,' which is anything but religious.

Also, the letters seem somewhat less brilliant than I expected from Moore; but it must be, after all, a most entertaining book.

Tell me if you have read Mrs.Gaskell's 'Ruth.' That's a novel which I much admire.