Volume Ii Part 68 (1/2)

5, HYDE PARK PLACE, W., _Sat.u.r.day, April 16th, 1870._

MY DEAR FRITH,

I shall be happy to go on Wednesday evening, if convenient.

You please me with what you say of my new ill.u.s.trator, of whom I have great hopes.

Faithfully yours ever.

[Sidenote: Mr. William Charles Kent.]

_Monday Morning, April 25th, 1870._

MY DEAR KENT,

I received your book[35] with the greatest pleasure, and heartily thank you for it. It is a volume of a highly prepossessing appearance, and a most friendly look. I felt as if I should have taken to it at sight; even (a very large even) though I had known nothing of its contents, or of its author!

For the last week I have been most perseveringly and ding-dong-doggedly at work, making headway but slowly. The spring always has a restless influence over me; and I weary, at any season, of this London dining-out beyond expression; and I yearn for the country again. This is my excuse for not having written to you sooner. Besides which, I had a baseless conviction that I should see you at the office last Thursday. Not having done so, I fear you must be worse, or no better? If you _can_ let me have a report of yourself, pray do.

[Sidenote: Mrs. Frederick Pollock.]

5, HYDE PARK PLACE, W., _Monday, May 2nd, 1870._

MY DEAR MRS. POLLOCK,

Pray tell the ill.u.s.trious Philip van Artevelde, that I will deal with the nefarious case in question if I can. I am a little doubtful of the practicability of doing so, and frisking outside the bounds of the law of libel. I have that high opinion of the law of England generally, which one is likely to derive from the impression that it puts all the honest men under the diabolical hoofs of all the scoundrels. It makes me cautious of doing right; an admirable instance of its wisdom!

I was very sorry to have gone astray from you that Sunday; but as the earlier disciples entertained angels unawares, so the later often miss them haphazard.

Your description of La Font's acting is the complete truth in one short sentence: Nature's triumph over art; reversing the copy-book axiom! But the Lord deliver us from Plessy's mechanical ingenuousness!!

And your pet.i.tioner will ever pray.

And ever be,

Faithfully yours.

[Sidenote: Mrs. E. M. Ward.]

5, HYDE PARK PLACE, W., _Wednesday, May 11th, 1870._

MY DEAR MRS. WARD,

I grieve to say that I am literally laid by the heels, and incapable of dining with you to-morrow. A neuralgic affection of the foot, which usually seizes me about twice a year, and which will yield to nothing but days of fomentation and horizontal rest, set in last night, and has caused me very great pain ever since, and will too clearly be no better until it has had its usual time in which to wear itself out. I send my kindest regard to Ward, and beg to be pitied.