ht devoutly to thank Heaven there is no absolute
compulsion laid on me at present to speak! My notion in general
was but an absurd one: I fancied I might go across the sea, open
my lips wide; go raging and lecturing over the Union like a very
lion (too like a frothy mountebank) for several months;--till I
had gained, say a thousand pounds; therewith to retire to some
small, quiet cottage by the shore of the sea, at least three
hundred miles from this, and sit silent there for ten years to
come, or forever and a day perhaps! That was my poor little day
dream;--incapable of being realized. It appears, I have to stay
here, in this brick Babylon; tugging at my chains, which will
not break for me: the less I tug, the better. Ah me! On the
whole, I have written down my last course of lectures, and shall
probably print them; and you, with the aid of proof-sheets, may
again print them; that will be the easiest way of lecturing to
America! It is truly very weak to speak about that matter so
often and long, that matter of coming to you; and never to come.
_Frey ist das Herz,_ as Goethe says, _doch ist der Fuss
gebunden._ After innumerable projects, and invitations towards
all the four winds, for this summer, I have ended about a week
ago by--simply going nowhither, not even to see my dear aged
Mother, but sitting still here under the Autumn sky such as I
have it; in these vacant streets I am lonelier than elsewhere,
have more chance for composure than elsewhere! With Sterne's
starling I repeat to myself, "I can't get out."--Well, hang it,
stay in then; and let people alone of it!

I have parted with my horse; after an experiment of seven or
eight months, most assiduously prosecuted, I came to the
conclusion that, though it did me some good, there was not
_enough_ of good to warrant such equestrianism: so I plunged
out, into green England, in the end of July, for a whole week of
riding, an _explosion_ of riding, therewith to end the business,
and send off my poor quadruped for sale. I rode over Surrey,--
with a leather valise behind me and a mackintosh before; very
singular to see: over Sussex, down to Pevensey where the Norman
Bastard landed; I saw Julius Hare (whose _Guesses at Truth_ you
perhaps know), saw Saint Dunstan's stithy and hammer, at
Mayfield, and the very tongs with which he took the Devil by the
nose;--finally I got home again, a right wearied man; sent my
horse off to be sold, as I say;