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[275] of Oxford, to London, finish what I have to do there, and embark in the first good ship. . . . . Farewell.

George.

The following passage was added to the Journal in the succeeding September:—

On the night of the 10th of February I reached Edinburgh. I entered no capital of Europe with a lighter heart and more confident expectations of enjoyment. .. . . . And yet it was there I was destined to meet the severest suffering my life had yet known. On the 11th I received letters announcing the death of my mother on the 31st of December. . . . The first anguish of the reflection that I was not with her was almost more than I could bear. It seemed to me that I had done wrong in going to Europe at all; and even now, that I write this, many months after the bitterness of the first suffering has gone by, it is a thought I cannot entirely drive from my mind. . . . . But all is in the hands of Him who has thus taken what was dearest to me in life, and who seems peculiarly to have reserved to Himself the consolation of sorrows which He alone can inflict; so that we may sometimes, at least, feel with persuading sensibility how entirely we are dependent upon Him.

To Mr. Elisha Ticknor.

Edinburgh, March 1, 1819.
Since I wrote you last, my dear father, I have not done much. I know not well what is the matter with me, but I have a kind of torpor and inefficiency in my faculties, which makes me pass my time here to very little purpose. This is by no means from the want of effort, for I do not think I ever made greater exertions in my life. I have been to see nearly, or quite, everybody that would have interested me, if I were in the proper state of mind to be interested.

In the main point I am likely to succeed well enough. I mean the literature peculiar to the country. I have received all the kindness and assistance possible in this, from the four persons in Edinburgh best qualified to give them, Walter Scott, Mr. Jamieson, Dr. Anderson, and Mr. Thomson. Mr. Jamieson comes to me every morning, and we have read Scotch poetry together, from the earliest times down to our own day, until it has become as easy to me as English. But I wish him to continue a week longer, for in every literature there are many things to be learnt besides the words and the language,


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