e Letters about that Squire business would be well to clear somewhat
up: but that can scarcely be done unless by vindicating Squire's honesty
at the expense of his sanity: and, as I have no reason to suppose but he
is yet alive, I know not how this can be decently done. Froude says he
cannot see his way into the truth further than Carlyle's printed Article
on the subject goes: but I think Carlyle must have told him his
conviction (whatever it was) some time during their long acquaintance.
Perhaps, however, he was too sick of what he thought an unimportant
controversy to endure any more talk about it. I am convinced, as from
the first, that Squire's story was true; and the fragments of Cromwell's
despatches genuine, though (as Critics pointed out) partially misquoted
by a scatter-brained fellow, ignorant of the subject, and of the Writer.

_To Mrs. Kemble_.

[_August_ 1882].

MY DEAR MRS. KEMBLE,

I have let the Full Moon go by, and very well she looked too, over the
Sea by which I am now staying. Not at Lowestoft; but at the old
extinguished Borough of Aldeburgh, to which as to other 'premiers Amours'
I revert: where more than sixty years ago I first saw, and first felt,
the Sea; where I have lodged in half the houses since; and where I have a
sort of traditional acquaintance with half the population: Clare Cottage
is where I write from; two little rooms, enough for me; a poor civil
woman pleased to have me in them. . . .

The Carlyle 'Reminiscences' had long indisposed me from taking up the
Biography. But when I began, and as I went on with that, I found it one
of the most interesting of Books: and the result is that I not only
admire and respect Carlyle more than ever I did: but even love him, which
I never thought of before. For he loved his Family, as well as for so
long helped to maintain them out of very slender earnings of his own;
and, so far as these two volumes show me, he loved his wife also, while
he put her to the work which he had been used to see his own Mother and
Sisters fulfil, and which was suitable to the way of Life which he had
been used to. His indifference to her sufferings seems to me rather
because of Blindness than Neglect; and I think his Biographer has been a
little too hard upon him on the Score of selfish disregard of her.

ALDEBURGH. _Sept._ 1. [1882].

MY DEAR MRS. KEMBLE,

Still by the Sea, from which I saw The Harvest Moon rise for her three
nights' Fullness. And to-da