elighted
with the place altogether.

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 th