DV. MARCUS STONE HÔTEL DU HELDER, Paris, Wednesday, September 13, 1865. and propose MY DEAR MARCUS, I leave here to-morrow, going to the office by tidal train next Saturday evening. Through the whole of next week, on and off, I shall be at the office; when not there, at Gad's; but much oftener at the office. The sooner I can know about the subjects you take for illustration the better, as I can then fill the list of illustrations to the second volume for the printer, and enable him to make up his last sheet. Necessarily that list is now left blank, as I cannot give him the titles of the subjects, not knowing them myself. It has been fearfully hot on this side, but is something cooler. Ever affectionately yours. P. S. — On glancing over this note, I find it very like the king's love-letter in Ruy Blas." "Madam, there is a high 66 wind. I have shot six wolves." I think the frontispiece to the second volume should be the dustyard with the three mounds, and Mr. Boffin digging up the Dutch bottle, and Venus restraining Wegg's ardour to get at him. Or Mr. Boffin might be coming down with the bottle, and Venus might be dragging Wegg out of the way as described. DVI. PERCY FITZGERALD OFFICE OF "ALL THE YEAR ROUND," MY DEAR FITZGERALD, I cannot thank you too much for Sultan. He is a noble fellow, has fallen into the ways of the family with a grace and dignity that denote the gentleman, and came down to the railway a day or two since to welcome me home (it was our first meeting), with a profound absence of interest in my individual opinion of him which captivated me completely. I am going home to-day to take him about the country, and improve his acquaintance. You will find a perfect understanding between us, I hope, when you next come to Gad's Hill. (He has only swallowed Bouncer once, and temporarily.) Your hint that you were getting on with your story and liked it was more than golden intelligence to me in foreign parts. The intensity of the heat, both in Paris and the provinces, was such that I found nothing else so refreshing in the course of my rambles. With many more thanks for the dog than my sheet of paper would hold, Believe me, ever very faithfully yours. DVII. MRS. PROCTER GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, Kent, MY DEAR MRS. PROCTER, September 26, 1865. I have written the little intro duction, and have sent it to my printer, in order that you may read it without trouble. But if you would like to keep the few pages of MS., of course they are yours. It is brief, and I have aimed at perfect simplicity, and an avoidance of all that your beloved Adelaide would have wished avoided. Do not expect too much from it. If there should be anything wrong in fact, or anything that you would like changed for any reason, of course you will tell me so, and of course you will not deem it possible that you can trouble me by making any such request most freely. You will probably receive the proof either on Friday or Saturday. Don't write to me until you have read it. In the mean time I send you back the two books, with the two letters in the bound one. With love to Procter, Ever your affectionate friend. DVIII. EDMUND YATES MY DEAR Edmund, HÔTEL DU HELDER, PARIS, Wednesday, September 30, 1865. -I leave here to-morrow and purpose being at the office on Saturday night; all next week I shall be there, off and on "off" meaning Gad's Hill; the office will be my last address. The heat has been excessive on this side of the Channel, and I got a slight sunstroke last Thursday, and was obliged to be doctored and put to bed for a day; but, thank God, I am all right again. The man who sells the tisane on the Boulevards can't keep the flies out of his glasses, and as he wears them on his red velvet bands, the flies work themselves into the ends of the tumblers, trying to get through and tickle the man. If fly-life were long enough, I think they would at last. Three paving-blouses came to work at the corner of this street last Monday, pulled up a bit of road, sat down to look at it, and fell asleep. On Tuesday one of the blouses spat on his hands and seemed to be going to begin, but did n't: the other two have shown no sign of life whatever. This morning the industrious one ate a loaf. You may rely upon this as the latest news from the French capital. Faithfully ever. DIX. HENRY F. CHORLEY OFFICE OF 66 ALL THE YEAR ROUND," No. 26, WELLINGTON STREET, STRAND, W. C., Saturday, 28th of October, 1865. MY DEAR CHORLEY, I find your letter here only to-day. I shall be delighted to dine with you on Tuesday, the 7th, but I cannot answer for Mary, as she is staying with the Lehmanns. To the best of my belief, she is coming to Gad's this evening to dine with a neighbour. In that case, she will immediately answer for herself. I have seen the "Athenæum," and most heartily and earnestly thank you. Trust me, there is nothing I could have wished away, and all that I read there affects and delights me. I feel so generous an appreciation and sympathy so very strongly, that if I were to try to write more, I should blur the words by seeing them dimly. Ever affectionately yours. MY DEAR MRS. PROCTER, The beautiful table-cover was a most cheering surprise to me when I came home last night, and I lost not a moment in finding a table for it, where it stands in a beautiful light and a perfect situation. Accept my heartiest thanks for a present on which I shall set a peculiar and particular value. Inclosed is the MS. of the introduction. The printers have cut it across and mended it again, because I always expect them to be quick, and so they distribute my copy among several hands, and apparently not very clean ones in this instance. Odd as the poor butcher's feeling appears, I think I can understand it. Much as he would not have liked his boy's grave to be without a tombstone, had he died ashore and had a grave, so he can't bear him to drift to the depths of the ocean unrecorded. My love to Procter. Ever affectionately yours. DXI. WILLIAM CHARLES KENT 26, WELLINGTON STREET, Monday, November 6, 1865. MY DEAR KENT, —No, I won't write in this book, because I have sent another to the binder's for you. I have been unwell with a relaxed throat, or I should have written to you sooner to thank you for your dedication, to assure you that it heartily, most heartily, gratifies me, as the sincere tribute of a true and generous heart, and to tell you that I have been charmed with your book itself. I am proud of having given a name to anything so picturesque, so sympathetic and spirited. I hope and believe the "Doctor" is nothing but a good 'un. He has perfectly astonished Forster, who writes: "Neither good, gooder, nor goodest, but super-excellent; all through there is such a relish of you at your best, as I could not have believed in, after a long story." I shall be charmed to see you to-night. Ever affectionately. DXII. M. DE CERJAT GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT, November 13, 1865. MY DEAR CERJAT, — Having achieved my book and my Christmas number, and having shaken myself after two years' work, I send you my annual greeting. How are you? Asthmatic, I know you will reply; but as my poor father (who was asthmatic, too, and the jolliest of men) used philosophically to In England we are groaning under the brigandage of the butcher, which is being carried to that height that I think I foresee resistance on the part of the middle class, and some combination in perspective for abolishing the middle man, whensoever he turns up (which is everywhere) between producer and consumer. The cattle plague is the butcher's stalking-horse, and it is unquestionably worse than it was; but seeing that the great majority of creatures lost or destroyed have been cows, and likewise that the rise in butchers' meat bears no reasonable proportion to the market prices of the beasts, one comes to the conclusion that the public is done. The commission has ended very weakly and ineffectually, as such things in England rather frequently do; and everybody writes to "The Times," and nobody does anything else. If the Americans don't embroil us in a war before long it Iwill not be their fault. What with their swagger and bombast, what with their claims for indemnification, what with Ireland and Fenianism, and what with Canada, I have strong apprehensions. With a settled animosity towards the French usurper, I believe him to have always been sound in his desire to divide the States against themselves, and that we were unsound and wrong in "letting I dare not wait upon I would." The Jamaica insurrection is another hopeful piece of business. That platform sympathy with the black or the native, or the devil afar off, and that platform indifference to our own countrymen at enormous odds in the midst of bloodshed and savagery, makes me stark wild. Only the other day, here was a meeting of jawbones of asses at Manchester, to censure the Jamaica governor for his manner of putting down the insurrection ! So we are badgered about New Zealanders and Hottentots, as if they were identical with men in clean shirts at Camberwell, and were to be bound by pen and ink accordingly. So Exeter Hall holds us in mortal submission to missionaries, who (Livingstone always excepted) are perfect nuisances, and leave every place worse than they found it. Of all the many evidences that are visible of our being illgoverned, no one is so remarkable to me as our ignorance of what is going on under our Government. What will future generations think of that enormous Indian Mutiny being ripened |