Faithful and affectionate Friend, EMILY DOUGLAS. LETTER III. ARTHUR HOWARD TO CHARLES FALKLAND. My Dear Falkland, _Glenalta_. Your letter from Dover has travelled many a mile in quest of me; first into Buckinghamshire, then to Grosvenor-square, "tried" Cambridge, and _non est inventus_ being the return made at each of these places, it has followed me into the wilds of Kerry in Ireland. Here I am actually at Glenalta, and as I mean faithfully to perform my promise, and execute the task which you have so solemnly _spread out_ before me, in such detail that I am not likely to forget the engagement, I shall _begin from the beginning_, for the following cogent reasons: first, that I may be correct by not trusting to memory; secondly, that I may not be overwhelmed by an inconvenient accumulation of materials, thirdly and lastly, because to vent my spleen in a letter is next to the relief of doing so in a _viva voce_ unburthening, disemboguing, or whatever else you choose to call this pouring out of my vexations. After a journey through a horrible country, as naked as if it was but just born, and as comfortless as if it had never been inhabited, I reached at last my haven of rest yesterday evening at six o'clock. You must not expect me to name places which I cannot spell, nor jolt over such roads as I have escaped again with you. This would indeed be "thrice to slay the slain," for I am in a state of mummy this morning. If David had known the county of Kerry, I should believe that it rose upon his mind, when he wrote of the judges that were overthrown in stony places. As I approached within a mile of my journey's end I should possibly have been put into good humour, if my temper had not been previously so ruffled as to counteract the influence of pleasanter impressions. Candour obliges me to confess, that nothing in nature can exceed the scenery of this spot when _once you are at it_; but in my present feelings I doubt whether I would go to Heaven itself, if there were no better road thither than that by which I have achieved my safe landing at Glenalta. Part of my way lay through a morass, technically called _bog_ in this country, which brought to my recollection every frightful engulfment that I ever heard or read of. The vast American swamps, the Indian jungles, aye, even "that great Lerborian bog 'twixt Damietta and the sea," so finely touched by Milton, appeared safe and smooth to my imagination in comparison with the dark abysses that seemed to yawn upon me from either side of my gloomy and monotonous path. No, it is not in human nature to recover a man's equilibrium after what I have suffered in less than a week; and therefore the features of this _cul de sac_, which has nothing beyond it but the waves of the Atlantic, will stand but a bad chance of being sketched in any other than