yes
to see those symbols of common things glorified, such as the prophets
saw them in that sunset,--the wheel, the potter's clay, the washpot,
the wine-press, the almond-tree rod, the baskets of figs, the
four-fold-visaged head, the throne, and Him that sat thereon.

One feeling I was particularly struck with, as what I recognized so very
lately at Harrow Church on entering in it after a hot and secular day's
pleasure,--the instantaneous coolness and calming, almost transforming,
properties of a country church just entered; a certain fragrance which
it has, either from its holiness, or being kept shut all the week, or
the air that is let in being pure country,--exactly what you have
reduced into words; but I am feeling that which I cannot express. The
reading your lines about it fixed me for a time a monument in Harrow
Church,--do you know it?--with its fine long spire, white as washed
marble, to be seen, by vantage of its high site, as far as Salisbury
spire itself almost.

I shall select a day or two very shortly, when I am coolest in brain, to
have a steady second reading, which I feel will lead to many more; for
it will be a stock book with me while eyes or spectacles shall be lent
me. There is a great deal of noble matter about mountain scenery, yet
not so much as to overpower and discountenance a poor Londoner, or
south-countryman entirely,--though Mary seems to have felt it
occasionally a little too powerfully; for it was her remark, during
reading it, that by your system it was doubtful whether a liver in towns
had a soul to be saved. She almost trembled for that invisible part of
us in her.

Save for a late excursion to Harrow, and a day or two on the banks of
the Thames this summer, rural images were fast fading from my mind, and
by the wise provision of the Regent all that was countrified in the
parks is all but obliterated. The very colour of green is vanished; the
whole surface of Hyde Park is dry, crumbling sand (_Arabia Arenosa_),
not a vestige or hint of grass ever having grown there; booths and
drinking-places go all round it, for a mile and a half, I am
confident,--I might say two miles in circuit; the stench of liquors,
_bad_ tobacco, dirty people and provisions, conquers the air, and we are
all stifled and suffocated in Hyde Park [2]. Order after order has been
issued by Lord Sidmouth in the name of the Regent (acting in behalf of
his royal father) for the dispersion of the varlets; but in vain. T