adviser.

LXVIII.

WOODBRIDGE: _Jan._ 8/80.

MY DEAR MRS. KEMBLE,

I think sufficient time has elapsed since my last letter to justify my
writing you another, which, you know, means calling on you to reply. When
last you wrote, you were all in Flannel; pray let me hear you now are.
Certainly, we are better off in weather than a month ago: but I fancy
these Fogs must have been dismal enough in London. A Letter which I have
this morning from a Niece in Florence tells me they have had 'London Fog'
(she says) for a Fortnight there. She says, that my sister Jane (your
old Friend) is fairly well in health, but very low in Spirits after that
other Sister's Death. I will [not] say of myself that I have weathered
away what Rheumatism and Lumbago I had; nearly so, however; and tramp
about my Garden and Hedgerow as usual. And so I clear off Family scores
on my side. Pray let me know, when you tell of yourself, how Mrs. Leigh
and those on the other side of the Atlantic fare.

Poor Mrs. Edwards, I doubt, is disappointed with her Husband's Gallery:
not because of its only just repaying its expenses, except in so far as
that implies that but few have been to see it. She says she feels as if
she had nothing to live for, now that 'her poor Old Dear' is gone. One
fine day she went down to Woking where he lies, and--she did not wish to
come back. It was all solitary, and the grass beginning to spring, and a
Blackbird or two singing. She ought, I think, to have left London, as
her Doctor told her, for a total change of Scene; but she may know best,
being a very clever, as well as devoted little Woman.

Well--you saw 'The Falcon'? {169} Athenaeum and Academy reported of it
much as I expected. One of them said the Story had been dramatised
before: I wonder why. What reads lightly and gracefully in Boccaccio's
Prose, would surely not do well when drawn out into dramatic Detail: two
People reconciled to Love over a roasted Hawk; about as unsavoury a Bird
to eat as an Owl, I believe. No doubt there was a Chicken substitute at
St. James', but one had to believe it to be Hawk; and, anyhow, I have
always heard that it is very difficult to eat, and talk, on the
Stage--though people seem to manage it easily enough in real Life.

By way of a Christmas Card I sent Carlyle's Niece a Postage one, directed
to myself, on the back of which she might [write] a few words as to how
he and herself had weathered the late Cold. She