Woodbridge: June 6, [1872].

Dear Mrs. Kemble,

Some little while ago I saw in a London Book Catalogue ‘Smiles and Tears—a Comedy by Mrs. C. Kemble’—I had a curiosity to see this: and so bought it. Do you know it?—Would you like to have it? It seems to be ingeniously contrived, and of easy and natural Dialogue: of the half sentimental kind of Comedy, as Comedies then were (1815) with a serious—very serious—element in it—taken from your Mother’s Friend’s, Mrs. Opie’s (what a sentence!) story of ‘Father and Daughter’—the seduced Daughter, who finds her distracted Father writing her name on a Coffin he has drawn on the Wall of his Cell—All ends happily in the Play, however, whatever may be the upshot of the Novel. But an odd thing is, that this poor Girl’s name is ‘Fitz Harding’—and the Character was played by Miss Foote: whether before, or after, her seduction by Colonel Berkeley I know not. The Father was played by Young.

Sir Frederick Pollock has been to see me here for two days, [15] and put me up to much that was going on in the civilized World. He was very agreeable indeed: and I believe his Visit did him good. What are you going to do with your Summer? Surely never came Summer with more Verdure: and I somehow think we shall have more rain to keep the Verdure up, than for the last few years we have had.

I am quite sure of the merit of George Eliot, and (I should have thought) of a kind that would suit me. But I have not as yet found an Appetite for her. I have begun taking the Cornhill that I may read Annie Thackeray—but I have not found Appetite for her as yet. Is it that one recoils from making so many new Acquaintances in Novels, and retreats upon one’s Old Friends, in Shakespeare, Cervantes, and Sir Walter? Oh, I read the last as you have lately been reading—the Scotch Novels, I mean: I believe I should not care for the Ivanhoes, Kenilworths, etc., any more. But Jeanie Deans, the Antiquary, etc., I shall be theirs as long as I am yours sincerely

E. F.G.