word:
rather, as you well say, 'a permissible colloquialism.' Yes; like old
Johnson's own '_Clubable_' by which he designated some Good sociable
Fellow.

'_Party_' has good Authority (from Shakespeare himself, as we know), and
is a handy word we ought not to dismiss: better than the d---d
'_Individual_' which should only be used in philosophic or scientific
discrimination. Still, Crabbe, in his fine Opium-inspired 'World of
Dreams' should not recall his beloved as '_that dear Party_.'

Other adjectives beside those that 'exit in _able_' are cavilled at.
'_Fadeless_'; what is '_a Fade_'? Why not 'unfading'? Yet there is a
difference between what has not as yet faded, and what _cannot_ fade. And
I shall become very '_tiresome_,' though I don't know of any '_tire_' but
of a Waggon wheel; and remain yours truly.

E. FITZGERALD.

_To C. E. Norton_.

WOODBRIDGE. _August_ 21/77.

MY DEAR SIR,

You have doubtless heard from Mr. Lowell since he got to Spain: he may
have mentioned that unaccomplished visit to me which he was to have
undertaken at your Desire. I doubt the two letters I wrote to be given
him in London (through Quaritch) did not reach him: only the first which
said my house was full of Nieces, so as I must lodge him (as I did our
Laureate) at the Inn: but the second Letter was to say that I had
Houseroom, and would meet him at the Train any day and hour. He wrote to
me the day before he left for Paris to say that he had never intended to
do more than just run down for the Day, shake hands, and away! That I
had an Instinct against: that one half-day's meeting of two
Septuagenarians (I believe), to see one another's face for that once,
'But here, upon that Bank and Shoal of Time and' then, 'jump the Life to
come' as well as the Life before. No: I say I am glad he did not do
that: but I had my house all ready to entertain him as best I could; and
had even planned a little Visit to our neighbouring Coast, where are the
Village remains of a once large Town devoured by the Sea: and, yet
undevoured (except by Henry VIII.), the grey walls of a Grey Friars'
Priory, beside which they used to walk, under such Sunsets as illumine
them still. This pathetic Ruin, still remaining by the Sea, would (I
feel sure) have been more to one from the New Atlantis than all London
can show: but I should have liked better had Mr. Lowell seen it on
returning to America, rather than going to Spain, where the yet older and