Tennyson, some forty years ago, saying to me _a propos_ of that
very book, 'I love those large, _still_, Books.' During a long Illness
of A. de M. a Sister of the Bon Secours attended him: and, when she left,
gave him a Pen worked in coloured Silks, 'Pensez a vos promesses,' as
also a little 'amphore' she had knitted. Seventeen years (I think)
after, when his last Illness came on him, he desired these two things to
be enclosed in his Coffin. {138b}

And I am ever yours
E. F.G.

LIII.

DUNWICH: _August_ 24, [1878.]

DEAR MRS. KEMBLE,

I forget if I wrote to you from this solitary Seaside, last year: telling
you of its old Priory walls, etc. I think you must have been in
Switzerland when I was here; however, I'll not tell you the little there
is to tell about it now; for, beside that I may have told it all before,
this little lodging furnishes only a steel pen, and very diluted ink (as
you see), and so, for your own sake, I will be brief. Indeed, my chief
object in writing at all, is, to ask when you go abroad, and how you have
done at Malvern since last I heard from you--now a month ago, I think.

About the beginning of next week I shall be leaving this place--for good,
I suppose--for the two friends--Man and Wife--who form my Company here,
living a long musket shot off, go away--he in broken health--and would
leave the place too solitary without them. So I suppose I shall decamp
along with them; and, after some time spent at Lowestoft, find my way
back to Woodbridge--in time to see the End of the Flowers, and to prepare
what is to be done in that way for another Year.

And to Woodbridge your Answer may be directed, if this poor Letter of
mine reaches you, and you should care to answer it--as you will--oh yes,
you will--were it much less significant.

I have been rather at a loss for Books while here, Mudie having sent me a
lot I did not care for--not even for Lady Chatterton. Aldis Wright gave
me his Edition of Coriolanus to read; and I did not think '_pow wow_' of
it, as Volumnia says. All the people were talking about me.

And I am ever yours truly
E. F.G.

LIV.

WOODBRIDGE: _April_ 3/79.

MY DEAR MRS. KEMBLE:--

I know well how exact you are in answering Letters; and I was afraid that
you must be in some trouble, for yourself, or others, when I got no reply
to a second Letter I wrote you addressed to Baltimore Hotel,
Leamington--oh, two months ago. When you last wrote to me,