head and acquiesced. But there is no doubt the letter was written and
sent; and I am sorry it was lost, for it contained, among other things,
an irrecoverable criticism of your father's _Life_, with a number of
suggestions for another edition, which struck me at the time as
excellent.

Well, suppose we call that cried off, and begin as before? It is
fortunate indeed that we can do so, being both for a while longer in the
day. But, alas! when I see "works of the late J. A. S.,"[63] I can see
no help and no reconciliation possible. I wrote him a letter, I think,
three years ago, heard in some roundabout way that he had received it,
waited in vain for an answer (which had probably miscarried), and in a
humour between frowns and smiles wrote to him no more. And now the
strange, poignant, pathetic, brilliant creature is gone into the night,
and the voice is silent that uttered so much excellent discourse; and I
am sorry that I did not write to him again. Yet I am glad for him; light
lie the turf! The Saturday is the only obituary I have seen, and I
thought it very good upon the whole. I should be half tempted to write
an _In Memoriam_, but I am submerged with other work. Are you going to
do it? I very much admire your efforts that way; you are our only
academician.

So you have tried fiction? I will tell you the truth: when I saw it
announced, I was so sure you would send it to me, that I did not order
it! But the order goes this mail, and I will give you news of it. Yes,
honestly, fiction is very difficult; it is a terrible strain to _carry_
your characters all that time. And the difficulty of according the
narrative and the dialogue (in a work in the third person) is extreme.
That is one reason out of half a dozen why I so often prefer the first.
It is much in my mind just now, because of my last work, just off the
stocks three days ago, _The Ebb Tide_: a dreadful, grimy business in the
third person, where the strain between a vilely realistic dialogue and a
narrative style pitched about (in phrase) 'four notes higher' than it
should have been, has sown my head with grey hairs; or I believe so--if
my head escaped, my heart has them.

The truth is, I have a little lost my way, and stand bemused at the
cross-roads. A subject? Ay, I have dozens; I have at least four novels
begun, they are none good enough; and the mill waits, and I'll have to
take second best. _The Ebb Tide_ I make the world a present of; I
expect, and, I