Office of "All the Year Round,"
Thursday, June 24th, 1869.
My dear Wills,
At a great meeting[30] compounded of your late "Chief," Charley, Morley, Grieve, and Telbin, your letter was read to-day, and a very sincere record of regret and thanks was placed on the books of the great institution.
Many thanks for the suggestion about the condition of churches. I am so aweary of church questions of all sorts that I am not quite clear as to tackling this. But I am turning it in my mind. I am afraid of two things: firstly, that the thing would not be picturesquely done; secondly, that a general cucumber-coolness would pervade the mind of our circulation.
Nothing new here but a speaking-pipe, a post-box, and a mouldy smell from some forgotten crypt—an extra mouldy smell, mouldier than of yore. Lillie sniffs, projects one eye into nineteen hundred and ninety-nine, and does no more.
I have been to Chadwick's, to look at a new kind of cottage he has built (very ingenious and cheap).
We were all much disappointed last Saturday afternoon by a neighbouring fire being only at a carpenter's, and not at Drury Lane Theatre. Ellen's[31] child having an eye nearly poked out by a young friend, and being asked whether the young friend was not very sorry afterwards, replied: "No. She wasn't. I was."
London execrable.
Ever affectionately yours.