[Feb. 1882.]

My dear Mrs. Kemble:

This week I was to have been in London—for the purpose of seeing—or offering to see—our dear Donne. For, when they told him of my offer, he said he should indeed like it much—‘if he were well enough.’ Anyhow, I can but try, only making him previously understand that he is not to make any effort in the case. He is, they tell me, pleased with any such mark of remembrance and regard from his old Friends. And I should have offered to go before now, had I not judged from your last account of him that he was better left with his Family, for his own sake, as well [as] for that of his Friends. However, as I said, I should have gone up on Trial even now, but that I have myself been, and am yet, suffering with some sort of Cold (I think, from some indications, Bronchial) which would ill enable me to be of any use if I got to London. I can’t get warm, in spite of Fires, and closed doors, so must wait, at any rate, to see what another week will do for me.

I shall, of course, make my way to Queen Anne’s, where I should expect to find you still busy with your Proof-sheets, which I am very glad to hear of as going on. What could have put it into my head even to think otherwise? Well, more unlikely things might have happened—even with Medes and Persians. I do not think you will be offended at my vain surmises.

I see my poor little Aconites—‘New Year’s Gifts’—still surviving in the Garden-plot before my window; ‘still surviving,’ I say, because of their having been out for near a month agone. I believe that Messrs. Daffodil, Crocus and Snowdrop are putting in appearance above ground: but (old Coward) I have not put my own old Nose out of doors to look for them.

I read (Eyes permitting) the Correspondence between Goethe and Schiller (translated) from 1798 to 1806 [231]—extremely interesting to me, though I do not understand—and generally skip—the more purely Æsthetic Part: which is the Part of Hamlet, I suppose. But, in other respects, two such men so freely discussing together their own, and each other’s, works interest me greatly. At Night, we have The Fortunes of Nigel; a little of it—and not every night: for the reason that I do not wish to eat my Cake too soon. The last night but one I sent my Reader to see Macbeth played by a little ‘Shakespearian’ company at a Lecture Hall here. He brought me one new Reading—suggested, I doubt not, by himself, from a remembrance of Macbeth’s tyrannical ways: ‘Hang out our Gallows on the outward walls.’ Nevertheless, the Boy took great Interest in the Play; and I like to encourage him in Shakespeare, rather than in the Negro Melodists.

Such a long Letter as I have written (and, I doubt, ill written) really calls for Apology from me, busy as you may be with those Proofs. But still believe me sincerely yours

Though Laird of Littlegrange.