list, that your dress as Thomas the Rhymer stands out in marked
_individuality_. Nothing shows more how few people are at all
_original_ than the absence of any thing striking or quaint in most of
the characters assumed at a Fancy Ball. This, however, is Pampering
the Pride of you members of the Mutual Admiration Society. You must
not become cliquish--no not Ye Yourselves!!!!

Above all _you_ must never lose that gracious quality (for which I
have so often given you a prize) of patience and sympathy with small
musicians and jangling pianos in the houses of kind and hospitable
Philistines. Besides, I like you to be largely gracious and popular.
All the same I confess that it is a grievance that music (and sherry!)
are jointly regarded as necessary to be supplied by all hosts and
hostesses--whether they can give you them good or not! People do not
cram their bad drawings down your throats in similar fashion, Still
what is, is--and Man is more than Music--and I have never felt the
real mastership you hold in music more than when you have beaten a
march out of some old tub for kindness' sake with a little gracious
bow at the end! Don't you remember my telling you about that wisp of
an organist whom Mr. R---- petted till he didn't know his shock head
from his clumsy heels, and the insufferable airs he gave himself at
their party over the piano, and the audience, and the lights, and
silence, and what he would or would not play to the elderly merchants.
And of all the amateur-and-water performances!!! I have heard enough
good playing to be able to gauge him!...

Incapacity for every other kind of effort is giving me leisure for a
feast of reading and _re-reading_ such as I have not indulged for
years. Amongst other things I have read for the first time Black's
_Strange Adventures of a Phaeton_--it is _very_ charming indeed, and
if you haven't read it, some time you should. As a rule I detest
German heroes _to English books_, but Von Rosen is irresistible! and
the refrain outbreaks of his jealousy are really high art, when he
unconsciously brings every subject back to the original motif--"but
that young man of Twickenham--he is a most pitiful fellow--" you feel
Dr. Wolff was never more simply sincere and self-deluded, than Von
Rosen's belief that it is an abstract criticism. Also you know how
tedious broken English in a novel is, as a rule. But Black has very
artistically managed his hero's idioms so as to give great effect.