310 THE JOURNEYMAN. 



much of originality in my thoughts, I perhaps owe it in 

 nearly as great a degree to the peculiarity of my edu- 

 cation as to any innate vigour of faculty. But you will 

 deem me dull and an egotist.' 



' Road-side, Tuesday, 11 o'clock. 



' I am on my way to Chapel-Hill ; the day is so 

 oppressively hot that the grass and corn look as if half 

 boiled, and there is a dense cloud of flies buzzing about 

 my head. I saw two minutes since a large weasel 

 quitting its hole to drink. My eyes are so dazzled by 

 the glare of the sun on the white of your letter, which 

 I have been again perusing, that I hardly see the cha- 

 racters I am forming. You have embodied very happily 

 in your description, the yawning tedium of some of our 

 Cromarty parties, and caught to the life the tone of the 

 sort of flippancy which has to pass in them for wit. 'Tis 

 a sad waste of time, my own Lydia, to be engaged in 

 such ; how much better could we not contrive to 

 spend an evening with only ourselves for our guests ; 

 but I suppose parties everywhere are almost equally 

 profitless. They were profitless even in Athens, in its 

 best days. " Why," says Socrates, " do the people call 

 in musicians when they entertain their friends ? Is it 

 not because they have not learned to converse ? " 



* Bayfield-Wood, two o'clock. 



' Where are you at present, my Lydia, or how are 

 you employed ? Am I with you as you are with me ? 

 or has my idea for a time entirely left you ? Would 

 that you were now beside me. I always feel as if at home 

 when in a wood. One wood is so like another, and 

 every wood so like the one I am best acquainted with, 

 that which covers the hill of Cromarty. Heigho ! when 



