He goes on Saturday to Cambridge to hear some one talk about the Hittites and the Asiatics. Did you not say there was a good Sunday train? They sing “O Rest in the Lord” at Magdalen. I often wonder that Addison’s Walk is so deserted on Sundays. He stays over Sunday at Cambridge. [129]
From David Rivers, Esq., to Mrs. Forth, Oxford.
Dear Mrs. Forth,—Saturday is a half-holiday at the Works, and I propose to come up and see whether our boat cannot bump Balliol. How extraordinary it is that people should neglect, on Sundays, the favourite promenade of the Short-faced Humourist. I shall be there: the old place.—Believe me, yours ever,
D. Rivers.
From Mrs. Casaubon to William Ladislaw, Esq., Stratford-on-Avon.
Dear Friend,—Your kind letter from Stratford is indeed interesting. Ah, when shall I have an opportunity of seeing these, and so many other interesting places! But in a world where duty is so much, and so always with us, why should we regret the voids in our experience which, after all, life is filling in the experience of others? The work is advancing, and Mr. Casaubon hopes that the first chapter of the “Key to All Mythologies” will be fairly copied and completed by the end of autumn. Mr. Casaubon is going to Cambridge on Saturday to hear Professor Tösch lecture on the Pittites and some other party, I really forget which; [130] but it is not often that he takes so much interest in mere modern history. How curious it sometimes is to think that the great spirit of humanity and of the world, as you say, keeps working its way—ah, to what wonderful goal—by means of these obscure difficult politics: almost unworthy instruments, one is tempted to think. That was a true line you quoted lately from the ‘Vita Nuova.’ We have no books of poetry here, except a Lithuanian translation of the Rig Veda. How delightful it must be to read Dante with a sympathetic fellow-student, one who has also loved—and renounced!—Yours very sincerely,
Dorothea Casaubon.
P.S.—I do not expect Mr. Casaubon back from Cambridge before Monday afternoon.
From William Ladislaw, Esq., to the Hon. Secretary of the Literary and Philosophical Mechanics’ Institute, Middlemarch.
My Dear Sir,—I find that I can be in your neighbourhood on Saturday, and will gladly accept your invitation to lecture at your Institute on the Immutability of Morals.—Faithfully yours,