That seems to me to be a very excellent disposition of money; but probably it is not in your line. The Corporation of London was appointed to manage the charity, but as a rule these rich City men left their money to their Chartered Companies for distribution. Where alms-houses, for example, are built and endowed there must obviously be some organization to carry them on; and the City Companies, who are commonly supposed to devote their time to eating and drinking, really exist largely for this admirable purpose. So do churchwardens; carrying round the plate is but a small part of their duties.
Here is a pretty compliment, to take the taste of all that away:—
If I were a rose at your window,
Happiest rose of its crew,
Every blossom I bore would bend inward:
They’d know where the sunshine grew.
A letter from an old friend making his first long voyage reaches me to-day from Aden. He says, “Why don’t artists oftener paint circular pictures? Nothing could be more beautiful than the views of water and sky, and now and then of scenery or buildings, that I have been getting through my porthole. I would almost go so far as to say that round pictures are the only ones—at any rate of the open air. You should get one of the Galleries to arrange a Porthole Exhibition and start the fashion.”—Good night,
R. H.
P.S.—Here is the latest definition of appendicitis. “The thing you have the day before your doctor buys a Rolls-Royce.”