at the following letter was written.

FROM ERASMUS FALKLAND, ESQ., TO THE HON. FREDERICK MONKTON.

I have had two or three admonitory letters from my uncle. "The summer
(he says) is advancing, yet you remain stationary in your indolence.
There is still a great part of Europe which you have not seen; and since
you will neither enter society for a wife, nor the House of Commons for
fame, spend your life, at least while it is yet free and unshackled, in
those active pursuits which will render idleness hereafter more sweet;
or in that observation and enjoyment among others, which will increase
your resources in yourself." All this sounds well; but I have already
acquired more knowledge than will be of use either to others or myself,
and I am not willing to lose tranquillity here for the chance of
obtaining pleasure elsewhere. Pleasure is indeed a holiday sensation
which does not occur in ordinary life. We lose the peace of years when
we hunt after the rapture of moments.

I do not know if you ever felt that existence was ebbing away without
being put to its full value: as for me, I am never conscious of life
without being also conscious that it is not enjoyed to the utmost. This
is a bitter feeling, and its worst bitterness is our ignorance how to
remove it. My indolence I neither seek nor wish to defend, yet it is
rather from necessity than choice: it seems to me that there is nothing
in the world to arouse me. I only ask for action, but I can find no
motive sufficient to excite it: let me then, in my indolence, not, like
the world, be idle, yet dependent on others; but at least dignify the
failing by some appearance of that freedom which retirement only can
bestow.

My seclusion is no longer solitude; yet I do not value it the less. I
spend a great portion of my time at E------. Loneliness is attractive to
men of reflection, nor so much because they like their own thoughts, as
because they dis like the thoughts of others. Solitude ceases to charm
the moment we can find a single being whose ideas are more agreeable to
us than our own. I have not, I think, yet described to you the person of
Lady Emily. She is tall, and slightly, yet beautifully, formed. The ill
health which obliged her to leave London for E------, in the height of
the season, has given her cheek a more delicate hue than I should think
it naturally wore. Her eyes are light, but their lashes are long and
dark; her hair is black and luxuriant, and worn