ot be up to going to London to see you, with
all your Company about you; perhaps (don't think me very impudent!) you
may come down, if we live till Summer, to my Woodbridge Chateau, and
there talk over some old things.

I make a kind of Summer in my Room here with Boccaccio. What a Mercy
that one can return with a Relish to these Books! As Don Quixote can
only be read in his Spanish, so I do fancy Boccaccio only in his Italian:
and yet one is used to fancy that Poetry is the mainly untranslateable
thing. How prettily innocent are the Ladies, who, after telling very
loose Stories, finish with 'E cosi Iddio faccia [noi] godere del nostro
Amore, etc.,' sometimes, _Domeneddio_, more affectionately. {117a}

Anyhow, these Ladies are better than the accursed Eastern Question;
{117b} of which I have determined to read, and, if possible, hear, no
more till the one question be settled of Peace or War. If war, I am told
I may lose some 5000 pounds in Russian Bankruptcy: but I can truly say I
would give that, and more, to ensure Peace and Good Will among Men at
this time. Oh, the Apes we are! I must retire to my Montaigne--whom, by
the way, I remember reading here, when the Lugger was building! Oh, the
Apes, etc. But there was A Man in all that Business still, who is so
now, somewhat tarnished.--And I am yours as then sincerely

E. F.G.

XLIV.

LOWESTOFT: _December_ 12/76.

DEAR MRS. KEMBLE,

If you hold to your Intention of coming to Europe in January, this will
be my last Letter over the Atlantic--till further Notice! I dare say you
will send me a last Rejoinder under the same conditions.

I write, you see, from the Date of my last letter: but have been at home
in the meanwhile. And am going home to-morrow--to arrange about
Christmas Turkeys (God send we haven't all our fill of that, this Year!)
and other such little matters pertaining to the Season--which, to myself,
is always a very dull one. Why it happens that I so often write to you
from here, I scarce know; only that one comes with few Books, perhaps,
and the Sea somehow talks to one of old Things. I have ever my Edition
of Crabbe's Tales of the Hall with me. How pretty is this--

'In a small Cottage on the rising Ground
West of the Waves, and just beyond their Sound.' {118}

Which reminds me also that one of the Books I have here is Leslie
Stephen's 'Hours in a Library,' really delightful reading, and, I think,
really settling some Qu