s also Mr.
Stephen.

And I am ever yours
E. F.G.

P.S. On second thoughts I venture to send you A. T.'s letter, which may
interest you and cannot shame her. I do not want it again.

XLII.

WOODBRIDGE: _Septr._ 21/76.

DEAR MRS. KEMBLE,

Have your American Woods begun to hang out their Purple and Gold yet? on
this Day of Equinox. Some of ours begin to look rusty, after the Summer
Drought; but have not turned Yellow yet. I was talking of this to a
Heroine of mine who lives near here, but visits the Highlands of
Scotland, which she loves better than Suffolk--and she said of those
Highland Trees--'O, they give themselves no dying Airs, but turn Orange
in a Day, and are swept off in a Whirlwind, and Winter is come.'

Now too one's Garden begins to be haunted by that Spirit which Tennyson
says is heard talking to himself among the flower-borders. Do you
remember him? {113a}

And now--Who should send in his card to me last week--but the old Poet
himself--he and his elder Son Hallam passing through Woodbridge from a
Tour in Norfolk. {113b} 'Dear old Fitz,' ran the Card in pencil, 'We are
passing thro'.' {113c} I had not seen him for twenty years--he looked
much the same, except for his fallen Locks; and what really surprised me
was, that we fell at once into the old Humour, as if we had only been
parted twenty Days instead of so many Years. I suppose this is a Sign of
Age--not altogether desirable. But so it was. He stayed two Days, and
we went over the same old grounds of Debate, told some of the old
Stories, and all was well. I suppose I may never see him again: and so I
suppose we both thought as the Rail carried him off: and each returned to
his ways as if scarcely diverted from them. Age again!--I liked Hallam
much; unaffected, unpretending--no Slang--none of Young England's
nonchalance--speaking of his Father as 'Papa' and tending him with great
Care, Love, and Discretion. Mrs. A. T. is much out of health, and scarce
leaves Home, I think. {114a}

I have lately finished Don Quixote again, and I think have inflamed A. T.
to read him too--I mean in his native Language. For this _must_ be, good
as Jarvis' Translation is, and the matter of the Book so good that one
would think it would lose less than any Book by Translation. But somehow
that is not so. I was astonished lately to see how Shakespeare's Henry
IV. came out in young V. Hugo's Prose Translation {114b}: Hotspur,
Falstaff and all.