solitary, sepulchral breakfasts, compared
with those which I promised myself with her; or which I made when she
had been standing an hour by my side, my guardian-angel, my wife, my
sister, my sweet friend, my Eve, my all; and had blest me with her
seraph kisses! Ah! what I suffer at present only shews what I have
enjoyed. But "the girl is a good girl, if there is goodness in human
nature." I thank you for those words; and I will fall down and worship
you, if you can prove them true: and I would not do much less for him
that proves her a demon. She is one or the other, that's certain; but I
fear the worst. Do let me know if anything has passed: suspense is my
greatest punishment. I am going into the country to see if I can work a
little in the three weeks I have yet to stay here. Write on the receipt
of this, and believe me ever your unspeakably obliged friend.

TO EDINBURGH

--"Stony-hearted" Edinburgh! What art thou to me? The dust of thy
streets mingles with my tears and blinds me. City of palaces, or of
tombs--a quarry, rather than the habitation of men! Art thou like
London, that populous hive, with its sunburnt, well-baked, brick-built
houses--its public edifices, its theatres, its bridges, its squares, its
ladies, and its pomp, its throng of wealth, its outstretched magnitude,
and its mighty heart that never lies still? Thy cold grey walls reflect
back the leaden melancholy of the soul. The square, hard-edged,
unyielding faces of thy inhabitants have no sympathy to impart. What is
it to me that I look along the level line of thy tenantless streets, and
meet perhaps a lawyer like a grasshopper chirping and skipping, or the
daughter of a Highland laird, haughty, fair, and freckled? Or why
should I look down your boasted Prince's Street, with the beetle-browed
Castle on one side, and the Calton Hill with its proud monument at the
further end, and the ridgy steep of Salisbury Crag, cut off abruptly by
Nature's boldest hand, and Arthur's Seat overlooking all, like a lioness
watching her cubs? Or shall I turn to the far-off Pentland Hills, with
Craig-Crook nestling beneath them, where lives the prince of critics and
the king of men? Or cast my eye unsated over the Frith of Forth, that
from my window of an evening (as I read of AMY and her love) glitters
like a broad golden mirror in the sun, and kisses the winding shores of
kingly Fife? Oh no! But to thee, to thee I turn, North Berwick-Law,
w