us in mind, and I hope we shall be able to receive you.

TO J. A. SYMONDS

_Bonallie Towers, Bournemouth, February 1885._

MY DEAR SYMONDS,--Yes we have both been very neglectful. I had horrid
luck, catching two thundering influenzas in August and November. I
recovered from the last with difficulty, but have come through this
blustering winter with some general success; in the house, up and down.
My wife, however, has been painfully upset by my health. Last year, of
course, was cruelly trying to her nerves; Nice and Hyeres are bad
experiences; and though she is not ill, the doctor tells me that
prolonged anxiety may do her a real mischief.

I feel a little old and fagged, and chary of speech, and not very sure
of spirit in my work; but considering what a year I have passed, and how
I have twice sat on Charon's pierhead, I am surprising.

My father has presented us with a very pretty home in this place, into
which we hope to move by May. My _Child's Verses_ come out next week.
_Otto_ begins to appear in April; _More New Arabian Nights_ as soon as
possible. Moreover, I am neck deep in Wellington; also a story on the
stocks, _The Great North Road_. O, I am busy! Lloyd is at college in
Edinburgh. That is, I think, all that can be said by way of news.

Have you read _Huckleberry Finn_? It contains many excellent things;
above all, the whole story of a healthy boy's dealings with his
conscience, incredibly well done.

My own conscience is badly seared; a want of piety; yet I pray for it,
tacitly, every day; believing it, after courage, the only gift worth
having; and its want, in a man of any claims to honour, quite
unpardonable. The tone of your letter seemed to me very sound. In these
dark days of public dishonour, I do not know that one can do better than
carry our private trials piously. What a picture is this of a nation! No
man that I can see, on any side or party, seems to have the least sense
of our ineffable shame: the desertion of the garrisons. I tell my little
parable that Germany took England, and then there was an Indian Mutiny,
and Bismarck said: "Quite right: let Delhi and Calcutta and Bombay fall;
and let the women and children be treated Sepoy fashion," and people
say, "O, but that is very different!" And then I wish I were dead.
Millais (I hear) was painting Gladstone when the news came of Gordon's
death; Millais was much affected, and Gladstone said, "Why? _It is the
man's own temerity!