too much of a marvel to
have really been a man? "Othello" is indeed all you say of it, and
more than anybody can say of it, and so are _all_ the great
plays. I am reading the historical ones with Bertie.... Alas,
indeed, for the coarseness! I never can understand the objections
to Bowdlerism. It seems to me so right and natural to prune away
what can do nobody good--what it pains eyes to look upon and ears
to hear--and to leave all the glories and beauties untouched....
The little Autocrat is beginning to master some of the maxims of
Constitutional Monarchy--for instance, to find out that we do not
always leave the room the moment he waves his hand by way of
dismissal and utters the command of "Tata." I waste too much time
upon him, in spite of daily resolutions to neglect him.... I don't
at all know whether Lord Chesterfield succeeded in making his son
like his own clever, worldly, contemptible self, but will try to
find out. _Have_ you read "Dean Maitland"? [107] Now, Fanny,
do stop, you know you have many other letters to write....

Ever thine,

F.R.

[107] "The Silence of Dean Maitland," by Maxwell Grey.

_Lady Russell to Lady Georgiana Peel_

DUNROZEL, HASLEMERE, SURREY, _September_ 9 [1887]

... Your account of the Queen and her visit interested us much....
I often wish she could ever know all my gratitude to her and the
nation for the unspeakable blessing and happiness Pembroke Lodge
has been, and is; joys and sorrows, hopes fulfilled, and hopes
faded and crushed, chances and changes, and memories unnumbered,
are sacredly bound up with that dear home. Will it ever be loved by
others as we have loved it? It seems impossible....

_Lady Russell to Lady Charlotte Portal_

DUNROZEL, HASLEMERE, _September_ 12, 1887

DEAREST LOTTY,--I don't think I am writing because your clock is on
the stroke of Sixty-three, for these clocks of ours become
obtrusive, and the less they are listened to the better for our
spirits. I wonder whether it's wrong and unnatural not to rejoice
in their rapid movements as regards myself. I often think so. There
is so much, or rather there are so many, oh, so many! to go to when
it has struck for the last time, and the longing and the yearning
to be with them is so unspeakable--and yet, dear Lotty, I cling to
those here, not less a