ents
that he does not fling himself, or not with the due impetuosity,
into the Black Controversy; a thing lamentable in the extreme,
when one considers what a world this is, and how perfect it would
be could Mungo once get his stupid case rectified, and eat his
squash as a stupid _Apprentice_ instead of stupid _Slave!_

Miss Martineau's Book on America is out, here and with you. I
have read it for the good Authoress's sake, whom I love much.
She is one of the strangest phenomena to me. A genuine little
Poetess, buckramed, swathed like a mummy into Socinian and
Political-Economy formulas; and yet verily alive in the inside
of that! "God has given a Prophet to every People in its own
speech," say the Arabs. Even the English Unitarians were one day
to have their Poet, and the best that could be said for them too
was to be said. I admire this good lady's integrity, sincerity;
her quick, sharp discernment to the depth it goes: her love
also is great; nay, in fact it is too great: the host of
illustrious obscure mortals whom she produces on you, of
Preachers, Pamphleteers, Antislavers, Able Editors, and other
Atlases bearing (unknown to us) the world on their shoulder, is
absolutely more than enough. What they say to her Book here I do
not well know. I fancy the general reception will be good, and
even brilliant. I saw Mrs. Butler* last night, "in an ocean of
blonde and broadcloth," one of those oceans common at present.
Ach Gott! They are not of Persons, these soirdes, but of
Cloth Figures.

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* Mrs Fanny Kemble Butler.
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I mean to retreat into Scotland very soon, to repose myself as I
intended. My Wife continues here with her Mother; here at least
till the weather grow too hot, or a journey to join me seem
otherwise advisable for her. She is gathering strength, but
continues still weak enough. I rest myself "on the sunny side of
hedges" in native Annandale, one of the obscurest regions; no
man shall speak to me, I will speak to no man; but have
dialogues yonder with the old dumb crags, of the most
unfathomable sort. Once rested, I think of returning to London
for another season. Several things are beginning which I ought
to see end before taking up my staff again. In this enormous
Chaos the very multitude of conflicting perversions produces
something more like a _calm_ than you can elsewhere meet with.
Men let you alone, which is an immense thing: they do it even
because t