Littlegrange: Woodbridge,
March 31, [1882.]

Dear Mrs. Kemble:—

It is not yet full Moon: [237a]—but it is my 74th Birthday: and you are the only one whom I write to on that great occasion. A good Lady near here told me she meant to pay me a visit of congratulation: and I begged her to stay at home, and neither say, nor write, anything about it. I do not know that [I] have much to say to you now that I am inspired; but it occurred to me that you might be going away somewhere for Easter, and so I would try to get a word from you concerning yourself before you left London.

The Book? ‘Ready immediately’ advertised Bentley near a fortnight ago: to-morrow’s Academy or AthenÆum will perhaps be talking of it to-morrow: of all which you will not read a word, I ‘guess.’ I think you will get out of London for Easter, if but to get out of the way. Or are you too indifferent even for that?

Satiated as you may have been with notices and records of Carlyle, do, nevertheless, look at Wylie’s Book [237b] about him: if only for a Scotch Schoolboy’s account of a Visit to him not long before he died, and also the words of his Bequest of Craigenputtock to some Collegiate Foundation. Wylie (of whom I did not read all, or half) is a Worshipper, but not a blind one. He says that Scotland is to be known as the ‘Land of Carlyle’ from henceforward. One used to hear of the ‘Land of Burns’—then, I think, ‘of Scott.’

There is already a flush of Green, not only on the hedges, but on some of the trees; all things forwarder, I think, by six weeks than last year. Here is a Day for entering on seventy-four! But I do think, notwithstanding, that I am not much the better for it. The Cold I had before Christmas, returns, or lurks about me: and I cannot resolve on my usual out-of-door liberty. Enough of that. I suppose that I shall have some Company at Easter; my poor London Clerk, if he can find no more amusing place to go to for his short Holyday; probably Aldis Wright, who always comes into these parts at these Seasons—his ‘Nazione’ being Beccles. Perhaps also a learned Nephew of mine—John De Soyres—now Professor of some History at Queen’s College, London, may look in.

Did my Patron, Mr. SchÜtz Wilson, ever call on you, up to this time? I dare say, not; for he may suppose you still out of London. And, though I have had a little correspondence with him since, I have not said a word about your return—nor about yourself. I saw in my AthenÆum or Academy that Mercutio did as usual. Have you seen the Play?

I conclude (from not hearing otherwise from Mowbray) that his Father is much as when I saw him. I do not know if the Papers have reported anything more of Lord Houghton, and I have not heard of him from my few correspondents.

But pray do you tell me a word about Mrs. Kemble; and beg her to believe me ever the same

E. F.G.