contrary, I am finishing it now," and entered, with great animation,
into a discussion of the subject and its capabilities. This reply to my
inquiry surprised and impressed me: for, as you are aware, my father was
then engaged in the simultaneous composition of two other and very
different works, "Kenelm Chillingly" and the "Parisians." It was the
last time he ever spoke to me about Pausanias; but from what he then
said of it I derived an impression that the book was all but completed,
and needing only a few finishing touches to be ready for publication at
no distant date.

This impression was confirmed, subsequent to my father's death, by a
letter of instructions about his posthumous papers which accompanied
his will. In that letter, dated 1856, special allusion is made to
Pausanias as a work already far advanced towards its conclusion.

You, to whom, in your kind and careful revision of it, this unfinished
work has suggested many questions which, alas, I cannot answer, as
to the probable conduct and fate of its fictitious characters, will
readily understand my reluctance to surrender an impression seemingly
so well justified. I did not indeed cease to cherish it, until
reiterated and exhaustive search had failed to recover from the
"wallet" wherein Time "puts alms for oblivion," more than those few
imperfect fragments which, by your valued help, are here arranged in
such order as to carry on the narrative of Pausanias, with no solution
of continuity, to the middle of the second volume.

There the manuscript breaks off. Was it ever continued further? I know
not. Many circumstances induce me to believe that the conception had
long been carefully completed in the mind of its author; but he has
left behind him only a very meagre and imperfect indication of the