would be Amethyst and S. Sapphire, which is my favourite stone anyway
and was my father's before me. But what would the ex-Slade professor do
about the letter Y? Or suppose he took the other version, how would he
meet the case, the two N.'s? These things are beyond my knowledge, which
it would perhaps be more descriptive to call ignorance. But I place the
matter in the meanwhile under your consideration and beg to hear your
views. I shall tell you on some other occasion and when the A.M. is out
of hearing how _very_ much I propose to invest in this testimonial; but
I may as well inform you at once that I intend it to be cheap, sir,
damned cheap! My idea of running amanuenses is by praise, not pudding,
flattery and not coins! I shall send you when the time is ripe a ring to
measure by.

To resume our sad tale. After the other seven were almost wholly
recovered Henry lay down to influenza on his own account. He is but just
better and it looks as though Fanny were about to bring up the rear. As
for me, I am all right, though I _was_ reduced to dictating _Anne_ in
the deaf-and-dumb alphabet, which I think you will admit is a _comble_.

Politics leave me extraordinary cold. It seems that so much of my
purpose has come off, and Cedercrantz and Pilsach are sacked. The rest
of it has all gone to water. The triple-headed ass at home, in his
plenitude of ignorance, prefers to collect the taxes and scatter the
Mataafas by force or the threat of force. It may succeed, and I suppose
it will. It is none the less for that expensive, harsh, unpopular and
unsettling. I am young enough to have been annoyed, and altogether eject
and renegate the whole idea of political affairs. Success in that field
appears to be the organisation of failure enlivened with defamation of
character; and, much as I love pickles and hot water (in your true
phrase) I shall take my pickles in future from Crosse and Blackwell and
my hot water with a dose of good Glenlivat.

Do not bother at all about the wall-papers. We have had the whole of our
new house varnished, and it looks beautiful. I wish you could see the
hall; poor room, it had to begin life as an infirmary during our recent
visitation; but it is really a handsome comely place, and when we get
the furniture, and the pictures, and what is so very much more
decorative, the picture frames, will look sublime.

_Jan. 30th._--I have written to Charles asking for Rowlandson's _Syntax_
and _Dance of Death_