rth on a visit at this time: firstly, because I am tied by
the leg to my book. Secondly, because my married daughter and her
husband are with us. Thirdly, because my two boys are at home for their
holidays.

But if you would come out of that murky electioneering atmosphere and
come to us, you don't know how delighted we should be. You should have
your own way as completely as though you were at home. You should have a
cheery room, and you should have a Swiss chalet all to yourself to write
in. _Smoking regarded as a personal favour to the family._ Georgina is
so insupportably vain on account of being a favourite of yours, that you
might find _her_ a drawback; but nothing else would turn out in that
way, I hope.

_Won't_ you manage it? _Do_ think of it. If, for instance, you would
come back with us on that Guild Saturday. I have turned the house upside
down and inside out since you were here, and have carved new rooms out
of places then non-existent. Pray do think of it, and do manage it. I
should be heartily pleased.

I hope you will find the purpose and the plot of my book very plain when
you see it as a whole piece. I am looking forward to sending you the
proofs complete about the end of next month. It is all sketched out and
I am working hard on it, giving it all the pains possible to be bestowed
on a labour of love. Your critical opinion two months in advance of the
public will be invaluable to me. For you know what store I set by it,
and how I think over a hint from you.

I notice the latest piece of poisoning ingenuity in Pritchard's case.
When he had made his medical student boarders sick, by poisoning the
family food, he then quietly walked out, took an emetic, and made
himself sick. This with a view to ask them, in examination on a
possible trial, whether he did not present symptoms at the time like the
rest?--A question naturally asked for him and answered in the
affirmative. From which I get at the fact.

If your constituency don't bring you in they deserve to lose you, and
may the Gods continue to confound them! I shudder at the thought of such
public life as political life. Would there not seem to be something
horribly rotten in the system of it, when one stands amazed how any
man--not forced into it by position, as you are--can bear to live it?

But the private life here is my point, and again I urge upon you. Do
think of it, and Do come.

I want to tell you how I have been impressed by the "Boatma