Nor is it a small evil that our attachment to home is weakened, and even a sense of shame engendered with respect to a hundred little habits and customs that to foreign eyes appear absurd--and perhaps vulgar. And lastly comes the great question, How are we ever to live in our own country again, with all these exotic notions and opinions? I don't mean how are _we_ to bear _Ireland_, but how is _Ireland_ to endure us! An American shrewdly remarked to me t' other day, "that one of the greatest difficulties of the slave question was, how to emancipate the slave _owners_; how to liberate the shackles of their rusty old prejudices, and fit them to stand side by side with real freemen." And in a vast variety of questions you 'll often discover that the puzzle is on the side opposite to that we had been looking at. In this way do I feel that all my old friends will have much to overlook,--much to forgive in my present moods of thinking. I 'll no more be able to take interest in home politics again than I could live on potatoes! My sympathies are now more catholic. I can feel acutely for Schleswig-Holstein, or the Druses at Lebanon. I am deeply interested about the Danubian Provinces, and strong on Sebastopol; but I regard as contemptible the cares of a quarter sessions, or the business of the "Union." If you want me to listen, you must talk of the Cossacks, or the war in the Caucasus; and I am far less anxious about who may be the new member for Bruff, than who will be the next "Vladica" of "Montenegro." These ruminations of mine might never come to a conclusion, Tom, if it were not that I have just received a short note from Belton, with a pressing entreaty that he may see me at once on a matter of importance to myself, and I have ordered a coach to take me over to his hotel. If I can get back in time for post hour, I 'll be able to explain the reason of this sudden call, till when I say adieu. LETTER XXXI. MISS CAROLINE DODD TO MISS COX, AT MISS MINCINGS ACADEMY, BLACK ROCK, IRELAND. Florence. My dearest Miss Cox,--It would be worse than ingratitude in me were I to defer telling you how happy I am, and with what a perfect shower of favors Fortune has just overwhelmed me! Little thought I, a few weeks back, that Florence was to become to me the spot nearest and dearest to my heart, associated as it is, and ever must be, with the most blissful event of my life! Sir Penrhyn Morris, who, from some unexplained misconception, had all but ceased to know us, was accidentally thrown in our way by the circumstance of mamma's imprisonment. By his kind and zealous aid her liberation was at length accomplished, and, as a matter of course, he called to make his inquiries after her, and receive our grateful acknowledgments.