But you may suppose that my thoughts often move towards you,and that I fancy what you may be doing in the great City,--the greatest on the Earth,--where I spent so many years of my life.I first saw London when I was between eight and nine years old,and then lived in or near it for the whole of the next ten,and more there than anywhere else for seven years longer.Since then I have hardly ever been a year without seeing the place,and have often lived in it for a considerable time.There I grew from childhood to be a man.My little Brothers and Sisters,and since,my Mother,died and are buried there.There I first saw your Mamma,and was there married.It seems as if,in some strange way,London were a part of Me or I of London.
I think of it often,not as full of noise and dust and confusion,but as something silent,grand and everlasting.
"When I fancy how you are walking in the same streets,and moving along the same river,that I used to watch so intently,as if in a dream,when younger than you are,--I could gladly burst into tears,not of grief,but with a feeling that there is no name for.
Everything is so wonderful,great and holy,so sad and yet not bitter,so full of Death and so bordering on Heaven.Can you understand anything of this?If you can,you will begin to know what a serious matter our Life is;how unworthy and stupid it is to trifle it away without heed;what a wretched,insignificant,worthless creature any one comes to be,who does not as soon as possible bend his whole strength,as in stringing a stiff bow,to doing whatever task lies first before him....
"We have a mist here to-day from the sea.It reminds me of that which I used to see from my house in St,Vincent,rolling over the great volcano and the mountains round it.I used to look at it from our windows with your Mamma,and you a little baby in her arms.