ntemplation of death, which I think very noble." His next letter, four
days later, described himself as continuing still at work; but also
taking part in dinners at Blackgang, and picnics of "tremendous success"
on Shanklin Down. "Two charity sermons for the school are preached
to-day, and I go to the afternoon one. The examination of said school
t'other day was very funny. All the boys made Buckstone's bow in the
_Rough Diamond_, and some in a very wonderful manner recited pieces of
poetry, about a clock, and may we be like the clock, which is always a
going and a doing of its duty, and always tells the truth (supposing it
to be a slap-up chronometer I presume, for the American clock in the
school was lying frightfully at that moment); and after being bothered
to death by the multiplication table, they were refreshed with a public
tea in Lady Jane Swinburne's garden." (There was a reference in one of
his letters, but I have lost it, to a golden-haired lad of the
Swinburnes whom his own boys used to play with, since become more widely
known.) "The rain came in with the first tea-pot, and has been active
ever since. On Friday we had a grand, and what is better, a very good
dinner at 'parson' Fielden's, with some choice port. On Tuesday we are
going on another picnic; with the materials for a fire, at my express
stipulation; and a great iron pot to boil potatoes in. These things, and
the eatables, go to the ground in a cart. Last night we had some very
good merriment at White's, where pleasant Julian Young and his wife
(who are staying about five miles off) showed some droll new games"--and
roused the ambition in my friend to give a "mighty conjuring performance
for all the children in Bonchurch," for which I sent him the materials
and which went off in a tumult of wild delight. To the familiar names in
this letter I will add one more, grieving freshly even now to connect it
with suffering. "A letter from Poole has reached me since I began this
letter, with tidings in it that you will be very sorry to hear. Poor
Regnier has lost his only child; the pretty daughter who dined with us
that nice day at your house, when we all pleased the poor mother by
admiring her so much. She died of a sudden attack of malignant typhus.
Poole was at the funeral, and writes that he never saw, or could have
imagined, such intensity of grief as Regnier's at the grave. How one
loves him for it. But is it not always true, in comedy and in tragedy,