I received your letter dated the 7th the night before last, and purposed ending this long epistle yesterday evening with an answer to it, but was prevented by having to go with my mother to dine with Mrs. L——­, that witty woman and more than middle-aged beauty you have heard me speak of.  I was repaid for the exertion I had not made very willingly, for I had a pleasant dinner.  This lady has a large family and very large fortune, which at her death goes to her eldest son, who is a young man of enthusiastically religious views and feelings; he has no profession or occupation, but devotes himself to building chapels and schools, which he himself superintends with unwearied assiduity; and though he has never taken orders, he preaches at some place in the city, to which crowds of people flock to hear him; none of which is at all agreeable to his mother, whose chief anxiety, however, is lest some one of the fair Methodists who attend his exhortations should admire his earthly expectations as much as his heavenly prospects, and induce this young apostle to marry her for her soul’s sake; all which his mother told mine, with many lamentations over the godly zeal of her “serious” son, certainly not often made with regard to young men who are likely to inherit fine fortunes and estates.  One of this young gentleman’s sisters is strongly imbued with the same religious feeling, and I think her impressions deepened by her very delicate state of health.  I am much attracted by her gentle manner, and the sweet, serious expression of her face, and the earnest tone of her conversation; I like her very much.

My mother is reading Moore’s “Life of Byron,” and has fallen in love with the latter and in hate with his wife.  She declares that he was originally good, generous, humble, religious—­indeed, everything that a man can be, short of absolute perfection.  She thinks me narrow-minded and prejudiced because I do not care to read his life, and because, in spite of all Moore’s assertions, I maintain that with Byron’s own works in one’s hand his character cannot possibly be a riddle to anybody.  I dare say the devil may sometimes be painted blacker than he is; but Byron has a fancy for the character of Lucifer, and seems to me, on the contrary, tres pauvre diable.  I have no idea that Byron was half fiend, half man (at least, no more so than all of us are); I dare say he was not at all really an atheist, as he has been reputed; indeed, I do not think Lord Byron, in spite of all the fuss that has been made about him, was by any means an uncommon character.  His genius was indeed rare, but his pride, vanity, and selfishness were only so in degree.  You know, H——­, nobody was ever a more fanatical worshiper of his poetry than I was:  time was that I devoured his verses (poison as they were to me) like “raspberry tarts;” I still know, and remember with delight, their exquisite beauty and noble vigor, but they don’t agree with me.  And, without knowing anything of