. But they crossed me every where. I met a
family of children and old women half-way up the Wengen Alp (by the
Jungfrau) upon mules, some of them too old and others too young to
be the least aware of what they saw.

"By the way, I think the Jungfrau, and all that region of Alps,
which I traversed in September--going to the very top of the
Wengen, which is not the highest (the Jungfrau itself is
inaccessible) but the best point of view--much finer than
Mont-Blanc and Chamouni, or the Simplon I kept a journal of the
whole for my sister Augusta, part of which she copied and let
Murray see.

"I wrote a sort of mad Drama, for the sake of introducing the
Alpine scenery in description: and this I sent lately to Murray.
Almost all the _dram. pers._ are spirits, ghosts, or magicians,
and the scene is in the Alps and the other world, so you may
suppose what a Bedlam tragedy it must be: make him show it you. I
sent him all three acts piece-meal, by the post, and suppose they
have arrived.

"I have now written to you at least six letters, or lettered, and
all I have received in return is a note about the length you used
to write from Bury Street to St. James's Street, when we used to
dine with Rogers, and talk laxly, and go to parties, and hear poor
Sheridan now and then. Do you remember one night he was so tipsy
that I was forced to put his cocked hat on for him,--for he could
not,--and I let him down at Brookes's, much as he must since have
been let down into his grave. Heigh ho! I wish I was drunk--but I
have nothing but this d----d barley-water before me.

"I am still in love,--which is a dreadful drawback in quitting a
place, and I can't stay at Venice much longer. What I shall do on
this point I don't know. The girl means to go with me, but I do not
like this for her own sake. I have had so many conflicts in my own
mind on this subject, that I am not at all sure they did not help
me to the fever I mentioned above. I am certainly very much
attached to her, and I have cause to be so, if you knew all. But
she has a child; and though, like all the 'children of the sun,'
she consults nothing but passion, it is necessary I should think
for both; and it is only the virtuous, like * * * *, who can afford
to give up husband and child, and live happy