Thus have I brought (I believe with fidelity) the first part of my epistolary labours to a conclusion. From this time forth you will know all the _ground-plan_, and be enabled to allot its own place to each occurrence as it may chance to arise. As to the general impression made upon my mind, I own to you that I never was so happy anywhere as since I came to this lone and lovely spot; and I am powerfully struck with the truth of a remark which you once made to me, and which at that time though I had a vague idea of your being right, I had no actual experience that permitted me to confirm; namely, that _society_ in its true sense consists not in the number of those _persons_ with whom one converses, but in the number of ideas excited in one's own mind. Glenalta completely illustrates this observation. A family of five individuals, with the addition of two intimate friends, have furnished such variety and excitement in the flow of my thoughts, that I appear to have lived in a crowd; and through a long duration of time I was thinking of this circumstance before I got up this morning as a contradiction to the common notion, that when we are most happy time seems the fleetest; but I see how it is--both remarks are strictly true. Stimulus of an agreeable diversified nature certainly prevents our taking note of time while _present_, and therefore it may be said to glide away rapidly; but when _remembered_, every circumstance which produced a change of pleasure, serves to distinguish one portion from another, and thus to afford a sense of progress, which the dullness of monotony is incapable of producing, just as a single acre of ground, animated by trees, houses, and living creatures, fills a much greater extent in imagination, when we _recollect_ the landscape, than is occupied by a wide expanse of ocean, though the latter, when _looked_ upon, appeared a boundless prospect; _still_, however, in the midst of this sunshine of the heart, I always bear in mind that its _locality_ is the secret of its charm. _You_ would not agree with me, but I am assured that the sort of thing that delights where one feels no _responsibility_, would cease to fascinate in the moment that the surrounding world came to call one to account for one's country cousins: and these dear souls, perhaps, might make one blush at the _west end_. I ought not to say so from any thing that I have seen here; but the whole course of our thoughts and feelings is _so_ subject to join the tide of opinion, that I hardly dare to assert how far my present impressions, vivid as they are, would stand the test of a Bond-street jury. As Mrs. Malaprop says, however, "let us not have any retrospections as to the future" _Viva, viva_. I am so much better, that I hardly remember how I came here in the high road to Charon's ferry. I am longing to hear from you. Don't forget to let me know about Stanhope, as Mr. Otway will be anxious to learn whether you and he _cement_.