Kinloch-Linchard, August 16, 1856.

I was not too well pleased with your letter, which I received just as I was leaving Glenquoich. You are aware that you have an impetuous way of looking at things, which makes you regard the simplest actions as impossibilities. Now, reconsider what I have said, and after mature reflection tell me yes or no. Send your reply to London, care of the Right Honourable E. Ellice, 18 Arlington Street....

I am beginning to be heartily sick of grouse and venison. The truly majestic scenery which meets my eyes daily still has the power to charm, but I am tired of wonders. What I can never cease to admire is the seclusiveness of these people. They might be sent to penal servitude together, and they would continue to retain their unsociable habits. As Beyle says, this comes from their dread of being caught saying or doing something stupid, or else it is due to their temperament, which makes them prefer selfish pleasures. Solve it who can.

We reached here in company with two middle-aged men and a woman, all of high life and familiar with the world. At dinner the ice had to be broken. After dinner the husband buried himself in a newspaper, the wife in a book, and the other man began to write letters, while I played alone against the host and hostess. Observe, if you please, that the people who isolated themselves thus had not seen their hostess for even a longer time than I, and they had, necessarily, many more things than I to tell her. I am told, and from the little I have seen am inclined to believe it, that the Celtic race know how to talk. ‘Tis a fact that on a market day one hears an uninterrupted sound of animated voices, of laughing and shouting. The Gaelic tongue is very soft and smooth to the ear. In England and the Lowlands there is absolute silence.

It is not kind of you to have written to me but once. I have sent you two letters, at least, to one of yours. Still I have no desire to scold you from so far away. These are my plans: I shall leave here to-morrow to go to Inverness, where I shall remain one day; from there to Edinburgh, then to York, Durham, and possibly Derby. I expect to reach Paris the 23d.