I have returned from my rural excursion; that is, I returned last night. Klindworth was there. He played a delicious and melancholy piece of his and afterwards we sang – he, the two daughters of the house, a young German painter, and I – five-part pieces by Purcell. The ladies seemed to know them like their Bible, but they pleased Klindworth and me only tolerably. The others drank it up like consecrated milk. There is a musical feeling at the bottom of these English organizations, but it is a conservative feeling, religious above all, and anti-passionate.