My situation in this place does not afford much to tell
you of. I need not mention that lately the world was made
just as much better by the addition of an individual of your
meritorious sex, as it would have been made worse by the



TO MRS. OOWINQ. 363

addition of a wretch of the other. The article grows^ begins
to look about, and, it seems to be said, is promising enough
to become as much worth as a thing of the kind is usually
likely to be. The fellow that has been here this three years
and more, and all the while has been making woeful destruc-
tion of the harvests and cattle, is large, and active, and full
of nonsense,— which, however, is as good as the greatest
part of the world is talking around him. Their mother has
recovered her accustomed degree of health, has a considerable
partiality to these brats, and stajB at home as quietly and
constantly as any good wife one ever heard o£ / stay at
home, too, nearly as close, except sometimes going a few
miles out on a Sunday to the preaching stations in the
country round. I do not feel, in doing this rather frequently,
much of the complaint which forced me to decline constant
preaching. We read a good deal socially, and what I have
to do alone is chiefly a little in the reviewing way, which is
sufficiently hard labour and bad pay, but which keeps one's
faculties in exercise, and may possibly do some little service
to a small part of what we call the Public. I have not set
fairly at anything of a larger and more permanent sort, but
certainly intend to do so as soon as I can screw up my
resolution.
