r
Intervals; and perhaps there may be other points of Unlikeness. After
hearing that first Nightingale in my Garden, I found a long, kind, and
pleasant, Letter from Mr. Lowell in Madrid: the first of him too that I
have heard since he flew thither. Just before he wrote, he says, he had
been assigning Damages to some American who complained of having been fed
too long on Turtle's Eggs {136}:--and all that sort of Business, says the
Minister, does not inspire a man to Letter-writing. He is acclimatizing
himself to Cervantes, about whom he must write one of his fine, and (as I
think) final Essays: I mean such as (in the case of others he has done)
ought to leave no room for a reversal of Judgment. Amid the multitude of
Essays, Reviews, etc., one still wants _that_: and I think Lowell does it
more than any other Englishman. He says he meets Velasquez at every turn
of the street; and Murillo's Santa Anna opens his door for him. Things
are different here: but when my Oracle last night was reading to me of
Dandie Dinmont's blessed visit to Bertram in Portanferry Gaol, I said--'I
know it's Dandie, and I shouldn't be at all surprized to see him come
into this room.' No--no more than--Madame de Sevigne! I suppose it is
scarce right to live so among Shadows; but--after near seventy years so
passed--'Que voulez-vous?'

Still, if any Reality would--of its own Volition--draw near to my still
quite substantial Self; I say that my House (if the Spring do not prove
unkindly) will be ready to receive--and the owner also--any time before
June, and after July; that is, before Mrs. Kemble goes to the Mountains,
and after she returns from them. I dare say no more, after so much so
often said, and all about oneself.

Yesterday the Nightingale; and To-day a small, still, Rain which we had
hoped for, to make 'poindre' the Flower-seeds we put in Earth last
Saturday. All Sunday my white Pigeons were employed in confiscating the
Sweet Peas we had laid there; so that To-day we have to sow the same
anew.

I think a Memoir of Alfred de Musset, by his Brother, well worth reading.
{138a} I don't say the best, but only to myself the most acceptable of
modern French Poets; and, as I judge, a fine fellow--of the moral French
type (I suppose some of the Shadow is left out of the Sketch), but of a
Soul quite abhorrent from modern French Literature--from V. Hugo (I
think) to E. Sue (I am sure). He loves to read--Clarissa! which reminded
me of