Essays will no doubt always be in request, like Shakespeare. But I am
perhaps not a proper Judge of these high matters. How should I? who have
just, to my great sorrow, finished 'The Woman in White' for the third
time, once every last three Winters. I wish Sir Percival Clyde's Death
were a little less of the minor Theatre sort; then I would swallow all
the rest as a wonderful Caricature, better than so many a sober Portrait.
I really think of having a Herring-lugger I am building named 'Marian
Halcombe,' the brave Girl in the Story. Yes, a Herring-lugger; which is
to pay for the money she costs unless she goes to the Bottom: and which
meanwhile amuses me to consult about with my Sea-folks. I go to
Lowestoft now and then, by way of salutary Change: and there smoke a Pipe
every night with a delightful Chap, who is to be Captain. I have been,
up to this time, better than for the last two winters: but feel a Worm in
my head now and then, for all that. You will say, only a Maggot. Well;
we shall see. When I go to Lowestoft, I take Montaigne with me; very
comfortable Company. One of his Consolations for _The Stone_ is, that it
makes one less unwilling to part with Life. Oh, you think that it didn't
need much Wisdom to suggest that? Please yourself, Ma'am. January, just
gone! February, only twenty-eight Days: then March with Light till six
p.m.: then April with a blush of Green on the Whitethorn hedge: then May,
Cuckoos, Nightingales, etc.; then June, Ship launched, and nothing but
Ship till November, which is only just gone. The Story of our Lives from
Year to Year. This is a poor letter: but I won't set The Worm fretting.
Let me hear how you are: and don't be two months before you do so.

_To W. B. Donne_.

WOODBRIDGE: _Febr._ 15 [1867].

MY DEAR DONNE,

I came home yesterday from a week's Stay at Lowestoft. As to the
Athenaeum, {91} I would bet that the last Sentence was tacked on by the
Editor: for it in some measure contradicts the earlier part of the
Article.

When your letter was put into my hands, I happened to be reading
Montaigne, L. II. Ch. 8, De l'Art de Conferer, where at the end he refers
to Tacitus; the only Book, he says, he had read consecutively for an hour
together for ten years. He does not say very much: but the Remarks of
such a Man are worth many Cartloads of German Theory of Character, I
think: their Philology I don't meddle with. I know that Cowell has
discovered they are all wr