robability of
their having been as ignorant of the real scheme in Charles's head, as
their descendants and followers down to this time, and to think with
pity and admiration that they believed the cause to be so much better
than it was. This is a notion I was anxious to have expressed in our
account of the book in these pages. For I don't suppose Clarendon, or
any other such man to sit down and tell posterity something that he has
not "tried on" in his own time. Do you?

In the whole narrative I saw nothing anywhere to which I demurred. I
admired it all, went with it all, and was proud of my friend's having
written it all. I felt it to be all square and sound and right, and to
be of enormous importance in these times. Firstly, to the people who
(like myself) are so sick of the shortcomings of representative
government as to have no interest in it. Secondly, to the humbugs at
Westminster who have come down--a long, long way--from those men, as you
know. When the great remonstrance came out, I was in the thick of my
story, and was always busy with it; but I am very glad I didn't read it
then, as I shall read it now to much better purpose. All the time I was
at work on the "Two Cities," I read no books but such as had the air of
the time in them.

To return for a final word to the Five Members. I thought the marginal
references overdone. Here and there, they had a comical look to me for
that reason, and reminded me of shows and plays where everything is in
the bill.

Lastly, I should have written to you--as I had a strong inclination to
do, and ought to have done, immediately after reading the book--but for
a weak reason; of all things in the world I have lost heart in one--I
hope no other--I cannot, times out of calculation, make up my mind to
write a letter.

Ever, my dear Forster, affectionately yours.

[Sidenote: M. de Cerjat.]

TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Thursday, May 3rd, 1860._

MY DEAR CERJAT,

The date of this letter would make me horribly ashamed of myself, if I
didn't know that _you_ know how difficult letter-writing is to one whose
trade it is to write.

You asked me on Christmas Eve about my children. My second daughter is
going to be married in the course of the summer to Charles Collins, the
brother of Wilkie Collins, the novelist. The father was one of the most
famous painters of English green lanes and coast pieces. He was bred an
artist; is a write