ere I am at St. Bees once more, amid the scenes which I
greeted in their barrenness in winter; but which have now put on their
full green attire that shews luxuriant to the eye, but speaks a tale of
sadness to this heart widowed of its last, its dearest, its only hope!
Oh! lovely Bees-Inn! here I composed a volume of law-cases, here I wrote
my enamoured follies to her, thinking her human, and that "all below was
not the fiend's"--here I got two cold, sullen answers from the little
witch, and here I was ---- and I was damned. I thought the revisiting
the old haunts would have soothed me for a time, but it only brings back
the sense of what I have suffered for her and of her unkindness the more
strongly, till I cannot endure the recollection. I eye the Heavens in
dumb despair, or vent my sorrows in the desart air. "To the winds, to
the waves, to the rocks I complain"--you may suppose with what effect!
I fear I shall be obliged to return. I am tossed about (backwards and
forwards) by my passion, so as to become ridiculous. I can now
understand how it is that mad people never remain in the same
place--they are moving on for ever, FROM THEMSELVES!

Do you know, you would have been delighted with the effect of the
Northern twilight on this romantic country as I rode along last night?
The hills and groves and herds of cattle were seen reposing in the grey
dawn of midnight, as in a moonlight without shadow. The whole wide
canopy of Heaven shed its reflex light upon them, like a pure crystal
mirror. No sharp points, no petty details, no hard contrasts--every
object was seen softened yet distinct, in its simple outline and natural
tones, transparent with an inward light, breathing its own mild lustre.
The landscape altogether was like an airy piece of mosaic-work, or like
one of Poussin's broad massy landscapes or Titian's lovely pastoral
scenes. Is it not so, that poets see nature, veiled to the sight, but
revealed to the soul in visionary grace and grandeur! I confess the
sight touched me; and might have removed all sadness except mine. So (I
thought) the light of her celestial face once shone into my soul, and
wrapt me in a heavenly trance. The sense I have of beauty raises me for
a moment above myself, but depresses me the more afterwards, when I
recollect how it is thrown away in vain admiration, and that it only
makes me more susceptible of pain from the mortifications I meet with.
Would I had never seen her! I m