the water,
had got fusty, _raw;_ an effect we are well used to in oaten and
other meals but, last year, we had a bushel of it ground _here,_
and the bitter taste was there as before (with the addition of
much dirt and sand, our millstones I suppose being too soft);--
whereupon we incline to surmise that there is, perhaps, as in the
case of oats, some pellicle or hull that ought to be _rejected_
in making the meal? Pray ask some philosophic Miller, if Mrs.
Emerson or you do not know;--and as a corollary this _second_
question: What is the essential difference between _white_ (or
brown-gray-white) Indian Meal and _yellow_ (the kind we now have;
beautiful as new Guineas, but with an ineffaceable tastekin of
_soot_ in it)?--And question _third,_ which includes all: How to
cook _mush_ rightly, at least without bitter? _Long_-continued
boiling seems to help the bitterness, but does not cure it. Let
some oracle speak! I tell all people, our staff of life is in
the Mississippi Valley henceforth;--and one of the truest
benefactors were an American Minerva who could teach us to cook
this meal; which our people at present (I included) are
unanimous in finding nigh uneatable, and loudly exclaimable
against! Elihu Burritt had a string of recipes that went through
all newspapers three years ago; but never sang there oracle of
longer ears than that,--totally destitute of practical
significance to any creature here!

And now enough of questioning. Alas, alas, I have a quite other
batch of sad and saddest considerations,--on which I must not so
much as enter at present! Death has been very busy in this
little circle of ours within these few days. You remember
Charles Buller, to whom I brought you over that night at the
Barings' in Stanhope Street? He died this day week, almost quite
unexpectedly; a sore loss to all that knew him personally, and
his gladdening sunny presence in many circles here; a sore loss
to the political people too, for he was far the cleverest of all
Whig men, and indeed the only genial soul one can remember in
that department of things.* We buried him yesterday; and now
see what new thing has come. Lord Ashburton, who had left his
mother well in Hampshire ten hours before, is summoned from poor
Buller's funeral by telegraph; hurries back, finds his mother,
whom he loved much, already dead! She was a Miss Bingham, I
think, from Pennsylvania, perhaps from Philadelphia itself. You
saw her;