* * * * *

"MY DEAR TROLLOPE,--I am heartily glad to hear from you. It was such
a disagreeable surprise to find that you had left London" [I had been
called away at an hour's notice] "on the occasion of your last visit
without my having seen you, that I have never since got it out of my
mind. I felt as if it were my fault (though I don't know how that can
have been), and as if I had somehow been traitorous to the earnest and
affectionate regard with which you have inspired me.

"The lady's verses are accepted by the editorial potentate, and shall
presently appear." [I am ashamed to say that I totally forget who the
lady was.]

"I am not quite well, and am being touched up (or down) by the
doctors. Whether the irritation of mind I had to endure pending the
discussions of a preposterous clerical body called a Convocation, and
whether the weakened hopefulness of mankind which such a dash of the
middle ages in the colour and pattern of 1866 engenders, may have
anything to do with it, I don't know.

"What a happy man you must be in having a new house to work at. When
it is quite complete, and the roc's egg hung up, I suppose you will
get rid of it bodily and turn to at another." [_Absit omen!_ At this
very moment, while I transcribe this letter, I _am_ turning to at
another.]

"_Daily News_ correspondent" [as I then for a short time was], "Novel,
and Hospitality! Enough to do indeed! Perhaps the day _might_ be
advantageously made longer for such work--or say life." [Ah! if the