at home, and the Company of Lads
travelling on foot to Edinburgh; and the monies which he sends home for
the paternal farm: and the butter and cheese which the Farm returns to
him. Ah! it is from such training that strength comes, not from
luxurious fare, easy chairs, cigars, Pall Mall Clubs, etc. It has all
made me think of a very little Dialogue {317} I once wrote on the matter,
thirty years ago and more, which I really think of putting into shape
again: and, if I do, will send it to you, by way of picture of what our
Cambridge was in what I think were better days than now. I see the
little tract is overdone and in some respects in bad taste as it is. Now,
do not ask for this, nor mention it as if it were of any importance
whatsoever: it is not, but if pruned, etc., just a pretty thing, which
your Cambridge shall see if I can return to it.

By the by, I had meant to send you an emendation of a passage in my
Tyrannus which you found fault with. I mean where OEdipus, after putting
out his eyes, talks of seeing those in Hades he does not wish to see. I
knew it was not Greek: but I thought that a note would be necessary to
explain what the Greek was: and I confess I do not care enough for their
Mythology for that. But, if you please, the passage (as I remember it)
might run:

Eyes, etc.,
Which, having seen such things, henceforth, he said,
Should never by the light of day behold
Those whom he loved, nor in the after-dark
Of Hades, those he loathed, to look upon.

All this has run me into a third _screed_, you see: a word we used at
School, only calling it '_screet_'--'I say, do lend me a screet of
paper,' meaning, a quarter of a foolscap sheet.

WOODBRIDGE. _Jan._ 18/82.

MY DEAR NORTON,

At last I took heart, and Eyes, to return to the OEdipus of this time
last year; and have left none of your objections unattended to, if not
all complied with. Not but that you may be quite as right in objecting
as I in leaving things as they were: but as I believe I said (right or
wrong) a little obscurity seems to me not amiss in certain places,
provided enough is left clear, I mean in matter of Grammar, etc. But I
see that you have good reason to object in other cases: and, on looking
at the Play again, I also discover more, too many perhaps to have heart
or Eyes to devote to their rectification. The Paper on which the second
Part is printed will not endure Ink, which also daunts me: never