occasional references scattered up and down his later works, hardly give
the prominence in his writings that the painter held in his thoughts. It
was about this time that he was made an Hon. Member of the Florentine
Academy.

He re-crossed the Alps, and settled to his work on political economy at
Mornex, where he spent the winter except for a short run home, which
gave him the opportunity of addressing the Working Men's College on
November 29.

His retreat is described in one of his letters home:

"MORNEX, _August_ 31 (1862).

"MY DEAREST MOTHER,

"This ought to arrive on the evening before your birthday: it is
not possible to reach you in the morning, not even by telegraph as
I once did from Mont Cenis, for--(may Heaven be devoutly thanked
therefore)--there are yet on Mont Saleve neither rails nor
wires....

"The place I have got to is at the end of all carriage-roads, and I
am not yet strong enough to get farther, on foot, than a five or
six miles' circle, within which is assuredly no house to my mind. I
cast, at first, somewhat longing eyes on a true Savoyard
chateau--notable for its lovely garden and orchard--and its
unspoiled, unrestored, arched gateway between two round turrets,
and Gothic-windowed keep. But on examination of the
interior--finding the walls, though six feet thick, rent to the
foundation--and as cold as rocks, and the floors all sodden through
with walnut oil and rotten-apple juice--heaps of the farm stores
having been left to decay in the ci-devant drawing room, I gave up
all medieval ideas, for which the long-legged black pigs who lived
like gentlemen at ease in the passage, and the bats and spiders who
divided between them the corners of the turret-stair, have
reason--if they knew it--to be thankful.

"The worst of it is that I never had the gift, nor have I now the
energy, to _make_ anything of a place; so that I shall have to put
up with almost anything I can find that is healthily habitable in a
good situation. Meantime, the air here being delicious and the
rooms good enough for use and comfort, I am not troubling myself
much, but trying to put myself into better health and humour; in
which I have already a little succeeded."

After describing the flowers of the Saleve he continues:

"My Father would be quite wild at the 'view' f