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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!
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