“Am I wearying you, Harry, by dwelling on the traits of a man who, for the brief space I have known him, has made the most profound impression upon me? Even where I dissent--as is often the case--from his views, I have to own to myself that were I _he_, I should think and reason precisely as he does. I fancied at first that, like many men who had quitted civilized life for the rude ways of the 'bush,' he would have contrasted the man of refinement unfavorably with the savage, but he was too keen and acute for such a sweeping fallacy; he saw the good and evil in both, and sensibly remarked how independent of all education were the really strong characteristics of human nature. 'There is not a great quality of our first men,' said he, 'that I have not found to exist among the wild tribes of the Far West, nor is there an excellence of savage nature I have not witnessed amidst the polished and the pampered.' “From what I can collect, he is only here passingly; some family matter has brought him over to this country; but he is already impatient to be back to his old haunts and associates, and his home beside the Orinoco. He has even asked me to come and visit him there; and from all I can see I should be as likely to attain distinction among the Chaymas as in the House of Commons, and should find the soft turf of the Savannahs as pleasant as the Opposition benches. In fact, Harry, I have half promised to accept his invitation; and if he renew it with anything like earnestness, I am resolved to go. “I am just setting out for the Hendersons', and while the horses are being harnessed I have re-read your letter. Of course I have 'counted the cost,'--I have weighed the question to a pennyweight! I could already write down the list of those who will not know me at all, those who will know me a little, and the still fewer who will know my wife! Can you not see, my dear friend, that where one drags the anchor so easily, the mooring-ground was never good? The society to which you belong by such slender attachments gives no wound by separation from it. “My anxiety now is on a very different score: it is that she will still refuse me. The hope I cling to is that she will see in my persistence a proof of sincerity. I would not, if I could, bring any family influence to my aid, and yet, short of this, there is nothing I would not do to insure success.