hopeless lives that have no
remedy. I know of such a dear lad about my Phil's age who has felt this
so sharply that he has given his happy, lucky, petted life to give
himself wholly to share their squalor and unlovely lives--doing all he
can, of evenings when his work is over, to amuse such as have the heart
to be amused, reading to them and telling them about histories and what
not--anything he knows that can entertain them. And this he has daily
done for about a year, and if he carries it on for his life time he
shall have such a nimbus that he will look top-heavy with it.

"No, you would always have been lovely and made some beauty about you if
you had been born there--but I should have got drunk and beaten my
family and been altogether horrible! When everything goes just as I
like, and painting prospers a bit, and the air is warm and friends well
and everything perfectly comfortable, I can just manage to behave
decently, and a spoilt fool I am--that's the truth. But wherever you
were, some garden would grow.

"Yes, I know Winchelsea and Rye and Lynn and Hythe--all bonny places,
and Hythe has a church it may be proud of. Under the sea is another
Winchelsea, a poor drowned city--about a mile out at sea, I think,
always marked in old maps as 'Winchelsea Dround.' If ever the sea goes
back on that changing coast there may be great fun when the spires and
towers come up again. It's a pretty land to drive in.

"I am growing downright stupid--I can't work at all, nor think of
anything. Will my wits ever come back to me?

"And when are you coming back--when will the Lyceum be in its rightful
hands again? I refuse to go there till you come back...."

* * * * *

"Dear Lady,--

"I have finished four pictures: come and tell me if they will do. I have
worked so long at them that I know nothing about them, but I want you to
see them--and like them if you can.

"All Saturday and Sunday and Monday they are visible. Come any time you
can that suits you best--only come.

"I do hope you will like them. If you don't you must really pretend to,
else I shall be heartbroken. And if I knew what time you would come and
which day, I would get Margaret here.

"I have had them about four years--long before I knew you, and now they
are done and I can hardly believe it. But tell me pretty pacifying lies
and say you like them, even if you find them rubbish.

"Your devoted and affectionate

"E.B.-J."