  Lowestoft, Septr. l8, [1879.] My dear Mrs. Kemble, Your last letter told me that you were to be back in England by the middle of this month. So I write some lines to ask if you are back, and where to be found. To be sure, I can learn that much from some Donne: to the Father of whom I must commit this letter for any further Direction. But I will also say a little—very little having to say—beyond asking you how you are, and in what Spirits after the great Loss you have endured. Of that Loss I heard from Blanche Donne—some while, it appears, before you heard of it yourself. I cannot say that it was surprising, however sad, considering the terrible Illness she had some fifteen years ago. I will say no more of it, nor of her, of whom I could say so much; but nothing that would not be more than superfluous to you. It did so happen, that, the day before I heard of her Death, I had thought to myself that I would send her my Crabbe, as to my other friends, and wondered After writing of this, I do not think I should add much more, had I much else to write about. I will just say that I came to this place five weeks ago to keep company with my friend Edward Cowell, the Professor; we read Don Quixote together in a morning and chatted for two or three hours of an evening; and now he is gone away to Cambridge and [has] left me to my Nephews and Nieces here. By the month’s end I shall be home at Woodbridge, whither any Letter you may please to write me may be addressed. I try what I am told are the best Novels of some years back, but find I cannot read any but Trollope’s. So now have recourse to Forster’s Life of Dickens—a very good Book, I still think. Also, Eckermann’s Goethe—almost as repeatedly to be read as Boswell’s Johnson—a German Johnson—and (as with Boswell) more interesting to me in Eckermann’s Diary than in all his own famous works. Adieu: Ever yours sincerely I am daily—hourly—expecting to hear of the Death of another Friend |
|
