bout Darwin's Philosophy, so wise, so true, so far as I could
judge, and, though written off, all fit to go as it was into Print, and
do all the World good. {309} . . .

It was fine too of Carlyle ordering to be laid among his own homely
Kindred in the Village of his Birth: without Question of Westminster
Abbey. So think I, at least. And dear J. S. at Mirehouse where your
Husband and I stayed, very near upon fifty years ago, in 1835 it was, in
the month of May, when the Daffodil was out in a field before the house,
as I see them, though not in such force, owing to cold winds, before my
window now. Does A. T. remember them?

_To Mrs. Kemble_.

[_April_, 1881.]

MY DEAR MRS. KEMBLE,

Somewhat before my usual time, you see; but Easter comes, and I shall be
glad to hear if you keep it in London, or elsewhere. Elsewhere there has
been no inducement to go until To-day: when the Wind though yet East has
turned to the Southern side of it; one can walk without any wrapper; and
I dare to fancy we have turned the corner of Winter at last. People talk
of changed Seasons: only yesterday I was reading in my dear old Sevigne,
how she was with the Duke and Duchess of Chaulnes at their Chateau of
Chaulnes in Picardy all but two hundred years ago: that is in 1689: and
the green has not as yet ventured to shew its 'nez' nor a Nightingale to
sing. You see that I have returned to her as for some Spring Music, at
any rate. As for the Birds, I have nothing but a Robin who seems rather
pleased when I sit down on a Bench under an old Ivied Pollard, where I
suppose he has a Nest, poor little Fellow. But we have terrible
Superstitions about him here; no less than that he always kills his
Parents if he can: my young Reader is quite determined on this head: and
there lately has been a Paper in some Magazine to the same effect.

My dear old Spedding sent me back to old Wordsworth too, who sings (his
best songs I think) about the Mountains and Lakes they were both
associated with: and with a quiet feeling he sings that somehow comes
home to me more now than ever it did before.

As to Carlyle, I thought on my first reading that he must have been
_egare_ at the time of writing: a condition which I well remember saying
to Spedding long ago that one of his temperament might likely fall into.
And now I see that Mrs. Oliphant hints at something of the sort. Hers I
think an admirable Paper: {311} better than has yet been written, or (I
beli