eve) is likely to be written by any one else. . . . I must think
Carlyle's judgments mostly, or mainly, true; but that he must have 'lost
his head' if not when he recorded them, yet when he left them in any
one's hands to decide on their publication. Especially when not about
Public Men, but about their Families. It is slaying the Innocent with
the Guilty. But of all this you have doubtless heard in London more than
enough. 'Pauvre et triste Humanite!' One's heart opens again to him at
the last: sitting alone in the middle of her Room. 'I want to die.' 'I
want--a Mother.' 'Ah mamma Letizia!' Napoleon is said to have murmured
as he lay. By way of pendant to this recurs to me the Story that when
Ducis was wretched his Mother would lay his head on her Bosom--'Ah, mon
homme! mon pauvre homme!' . . .

And now I have written more than enough for yourself and me: whose Eyes
may be the worse for it to-morrow. I still go about in Blue Glasses, and
flinch from Lamp and Candle. Pray let me know about your own Eyes, and
your own Self; and believe me always sincerely yours

LITTLEGRANGE.
_May_ 8, [1881].

If still at Leamington, you look upon a sight which I used to like well;
that is, the blue Avon (as in this weather it will be) roaming through
buttercup meadows all the way to Warwick; unless those meadows are all
built over since I was there some forty years ago. . . .

I am got back to my Sevigne! who somehow returns to me in Spring; fresh
as the Flowers. These latter have done but badly this Spring: cut off or
withered by the Cold: and now parched up by this blazing Sun and dry
Wind.

_From another Letter in the same year_.

It has been what we call down here 'smurring' rather than raining, all
day long, and I think that Flower and Herb already show their gratitude.
My Blackbird (I think it is the same I have tried to keep alive during
the Winter) seems also to have 'wetted his Whistle,' and what they call
the 'Cuckoo's mate' with a rather harsh scissor note announces that his
Partner may be on the wing to these Latitudes. You will hear of him at
Mr W. Shakespeare's, it may be. {313} There must be Violets, white and
blue, somewhere about where he lies, I think. They are generally found
in a Churchyard, where also (the Hunters used to say) a Hare: for the
same reason of comparative security I suppose.

_To Miss S. F. Spedding_.

LITTLE GRANGE, WOODBRIDGE.
_July /81_.

. . . As I am so very little know