Little Grange: Woodbridge, July 21, [1874.]

Dear Mrs. Kemble,

I must write to you—for I have seen Donne, and can tell you that he looks and seems much better than I had expected, though I had been told to expect well: he was upright, well coloured, animated; I should say (sotto voce) better than he seemed to me two years ago. And this in spite of the new Lord Chamberlain [48a] having ousted him from his Theatrical post, wanting a younger and more active man to go and see the Plays, as well as read them. I do not think this unjust; I was told by Pollock that the dismissal was rather abrupt: but Donne did not complain of it. When does he complain? He will now, however, leave Weymouth Street, and inhabit some less costly house—not wanting indeed so large [a] one for his present household. He is shortly going with his Daughters to join the Blakesleys at Whitby. Mowbray was going off for his Holiday to Cornwall: I just heard him speaking of Freddy’s present Address to his father: Blanche was much stronger, from the treatment of a Dr. Beard [48b] (I think). I was quite moved by her warm salutation when I met her, after some fifteen years’ absence. All this I report from a Visit I made to Donne’s own house in London. A thing I scarce ever thought to do again, you may know: but I could not bear to be close to him in London for two days without assuring myself with my own Eyes how he looked. I think I observed a slight hesitation of memory: but certainly not so much as I find in myself, nor, I suppose, unusual in one’s Contemporaries. My visit to London followed a visit to Edinburgh: which I have intended these thirty years, only for the purpose of seeing my dear Sir Walter’s House and Home: and which I am glad to have seen, as that of Shakespeare. I had expected to find a rather Cockney Castle: but no such thing: all substantially and proportionably built, according to the Style of the Country: the Grounds well and simply laid out: the woods he planted well-grown, and that dear Tweed running and murmuring still—as on the day of his Death. [49a] I did not so much care for Melrose, and Jedburgh, [49b] though his Tomb is there—in one of the half-ruined corners. Another day I went to Trossachs, Katrine, Lomond, etc., which (as I expected) seemed much better to me in Pictures and Drop-scenes. I was but three days in Scotland, and was glad to get back to my own dull flat country, though I did worship the Pentland, Cheviot, and Eildon, Hills, more for their Associations than themselves. They are not big enough for that.

I saw little in London: the Academy Pictures even below the average, I thought: only a Picture by Millais of an old Sea Captain [49c] being read to by his Daughter which moistened my Eyes. I thought she was reading him the Bible, which he seemed half listening to, half rambling over his past Life: but I am told (I had no Catalogue) that she was reading about the North West Passage. There were three deep of Bonnets before Miss Thompson’s famous Roll Call of the Guards in the Crimea; so I did not wait till they fell away. [50a]

Yours always

E. F.G.