nt; and, any how, wrote to say that I and my house were ready.
And there is enough of the matter. You are busied with other and greater
things. Nor must you think yourself called on to answer this letter at
all.

When you were to start for Spain, I was thinking what a hot time of it
you would have there: in Madrid too, I suppose, worst of all, I have
heard. But you have Titian and Velasquez to refresh you. Cervantes too
is not far. We have here (some two or three years old) a Book 'Untrodden
Spain'; unaffectedly and pleasantly written by some Clergyman, Rose, who
lived chiefly among the mining folk. But there is a Chapter in Vol. 2
entitled '[_El_]_ Pajaro_,' and giving account of a day's sport with
[Pedro the Barber] who carries a Decoy Bird, which is as another Chapter
to Don Quixote. Ah! I look at him on my Shelf, and know that I can take
him down when I will, and that I shall do so many a time before 1878 if I
live. . . .

Tell me something of the Spanish Drama, Lope, or Calderon. I think you
could get one acted by Virtue of your Office.

WOODBRIDGE. [_October_, 1877.]

MY DEAR SIR--(which I will exchange for your own name if you will set me
Example).

You see I write to you; but do not expect any answer from the midst of
all your Business. But I have lately been re-reading--(at that same old
Dunwich, too)--those Essays of yours on which you wished to see my
'Adversaria.' These are too few and insignificant to specify by Letter:
when you return to English-speaking World, you shall, if you please, see
my Copy, or Copies, marked with a Query at such places as I stumbled at.
Were not the whole so really admirable, both in Thought and Diction, I
should not stumble at such Straws; such Straws as you can easily blow
away if you should ever care to do so. Only, pray understand (what I
really mean) that, in all my remarks, I do not pretend to the level of an
original Writer like yourself: only as a Reader of Taste, which is a very
different thing you know, however useful now and then in the Service of
Genius. I am accredited with the Aphorism, 'Taste is the Feminine of
Genius.' However that may be, I have some confidence in my own. And, as
I have read these Essays of yours more than once and again, and with
increasing Satisfaction, so I believe will other men long after me; not
as Literary Essays only, but comprehending very much beside of Human and
Divine, all treated with such a very full and universal