England, indeed, contained little that was personally endearing to me, except my beloved surviving parent; but it was a joyous thing to embrace her once more, after the deep roll of the ocean had separated us for nearly three years; during a portion of which she had been learning to prize her native land, in a disgusting region of all that is most directly opposed to liberty, civil or religious--to honorable feeling, just conduct, honest principle, or practical decency. In short, she had been in Portugal. LETTER V. IRELAND. I now arrive at an epoch from which I may date the commencement of all that deserves to be called life, inasmuch as I had hitherto been living without God in the world. My existence was a feverish dream of vain pleasure first, and then of agitations and horrors. My mind was a chaos of useless information, my character a mass of unapplied energies, my heart a waste of unclaimed affections, and my hope an enigma of confused speculations. I had plenty to do, yet felt that I was doing nothing; and there was a growing want within my bosom, a craving after I know not what--a restless, unsatisfied, unhappy feeling, that seemed in quest of some unknown good. How this was awakened, I know not; it was unaccompanied with any conviction of my own sinfulness, or any doubt of my perfect safety as a child of God. I did not anticipate any satisfaction from change of place; but readily prepared to obey a summons from my husband to follow him to Ireland, whither he had gone to engage in a law-suit. To be sure I hated Ireland most cordially; I had never seen it, and as a matter of choice would have preferred New South Wales, so completely was I influenced by the prevailing prejudice against that land of barbarism. Many people despise Ireland, who, if you demand a reason, will tell you it is a horrid place, and the people all savages; but if you press for proofs and illustrations, furthermore such deponents say not.