ent, and without thanking you for your delightful letter.
Oh! why don't you squeeze yourself sometimes into that funny little
house opposite Miss Bailey's, and let me take a cup of tea off the
cushions, or some other place where the books would allow it to be
put? And why don't you allow me to stumble over my German? And why
doesn't Rex, Esq. (for Rex is too familiar even for a Bishop) correct
my musical efforts? How terrible this word _past_ is! The past is at
all events _real_, but the future is so shadowy, and like the ghosts
of Ulysses it entirely eludes one's grasp. I speak of course of things
that belong to this life. It was (I assure you) a treat to lay hold of
you and your letters, and (a minor consideration) to find that even
your handwriting had not degenerated, and had not become like spiders'
legs dipped in ink and crawling on the paper, as is the case of some
nameless correspondents. There was only one word I could not make out.
In personal appearance the letters stood thus, _[Greek: us]_. It looks like
"us," or like the Greek _[Greek: un]_, which being interpreted is
"pig." But M----, who is far cleverer than I am, at once oracularly
pronounced it "very," and I believe her and you too....

I was greatly tickled in your getting _amusement_ out of "Job," the
last book where one would have expected to find it; but stop--I
recollect it is out of _me_, not the patriarch, that you find
something to smile at, and no doubt you are right, for no doubt I say
ridiculous things sometimes. _Au serieux_, it pleases me much that you
enter into my little book, and evidently have _read_ it, for I have
had complimentary letters from people who plainly had not read a word,
and to the best of my belief never will. I wish you had been more
critical, and had pointed out the faults and defects of the book, of
which there are no doubt some, if not many, to be found. I flatter
myself that I have made more clear some passages utterly
unintelligible in our A.V., such as, "He shall deliver the island of
the innocent, yea," etc., chap. xxii. 30, and chap, xxxvi. 33, and the
whole of chap. xxiv. and chap. xx. What a fierce, cruel, hot-headed
Arab Zophar is! How the wretch gloats over Job's miseries. Yet one
admires his word-painting while one longs to kick him! I am glad to
see the _Church Times_ agrees with me in the early character of the
book. There is not a trace in it of later Jewish history or feeling.
The argument on the other s