"I, deaf, can hardly conceive how he, with eyes & ears, & a heart wh[ich] leads him to converse with the poor in his incessant walks, can be so unaware of their moral state. I dare say you need not be told how sensual vice abounds in rural districts. Here it is flagrant beyond any thing I ever c[oul]d have looked for: & here, while every justice of the peace is filled with disgust, & every clergy[man] with (almost) despair at the drunkenness, quarrelling, & extreme licentiousness with women,—here is dear good old Wordsworth for ever talking of rural innocence, & deprecating any intercourse with towns, lest the purity of his neighbours should be corrupted. He little knows what elevation, self denial & refinement occur in towns from the superior cultivation of the people."