al to say to you about poor Glencore, whom you tell me
you remember; but, how to say it? He is broken-hearted--literally
broken-hearted--by her desertion of him. It was one of those
ill-assorted leagues which cannot hold together. Why they did not
see this, and make the best of it,--sensibly, dispassionately, even
amicably,--it is difficult to say. An Englishman, it would seem,
must always hate his wife if she cannot love him; and, after all, how
involuntary are all affections, and what a severe penalty is this for an
unwitting offence!

He ponders over this calamity just as if it were the crushing stroke by
which a man's whole career was to be finished forever.

The stupidity of all stupidities is in these cases to fly from the world
and avoid society. By doing this a man rears a barrier he never can
repass; he proclaims aloud his sentiment of the injury, quite forgetting
all the offence he is giving to the hundred and fifty others who, in the
same predicament as himself, are by no means disposed to turn hermits
on account of it. Men make revolutionary governments, smash dynasties,
transgress laws, but they cannot oppose _convenances!_

I need scarcely say that there is nothing to be gained by reason-ing
with him. He has worked himself up to a chronic fury, and talks of
vengeance all day long, like a Corsican. For company here I have an
old brother officer of my days of tinsel and pipe-clay,--an excellent
creature, whom I amuse myself by tormenting. There is also Glencore's
boy,--a strange, dreamy kind of haughty fellow, an exaggeration of
his father in disposition, but with good abilities. These are not the
elements of much social agreeability; but you know, dear friend, how
little I stand in need of what is called company. Your last letter,
charming as it was, has afforded me all the companionship I could
desire. I have re-read it till I know it by heart. I could almost chide
you for that delightful little party in my absence, but of course it
was, as all you ever do is, perfectly right; and, after all, I am,
perhaps, not sorry that you had those people when I was away, so that we
shall be more _chez nous_ when we meet. But when is that to be? Who can
tell? My medico insists upon five full weeks for my cure. Allington is
very likely, in his present temper, to order me back to my post. You
seem to think that you must be in Berlin when Seckendorf arrives, so
that--But I will not darken the future by gloomy foreboding