Boulge, Woodbridge,
[30 Jan. 1848.]
My dear Laurence,
How are you—how are you getting on? A voice from the tombs thus addresses you; respect the dead, and answer. Barton is well; that is, I left him well on Friday: but he was just going off to attend a Quaker’s funeral in the snow: whether he has survived that, I don’t know. To-morrow is his Birth-day: and I am going (if he be alive) to help him to
celebrate it. His portrait has been hung (under my directions) over the mantel-piece in his sitting room, with a broad margin of some red stuff behind it, to set it off. You may turn up your nose at all this; but let me tell you it is considered one of the happiest contrivances ever adopted in Woodbridge. Nineteen people out of twenty like the portrait much; the twentieth, you may be sure, is a man of no taste at all.
I hear you were for a long time in Cumberland. Did you paint a waterfall—or old Wordsworth—or Skiddaw, or any of the beauties? Did you see anything so inviting to the pencil as the river Deben? When are you coming to see us again? Churchyard relies on your coming; but then he is a very sanguine man, and, though a lawyer, wonderfully confident in the promises of men. How are all your family? You see I have asked you some questions; so you must answer them; and believe me yours truly,
E. FitzGerald.
To John Allen.
Boulge, Woodbridge,
March 2/48.
My dear Allen,
. . . Every year I have less and less desire to go to London: and now you are not there I have one reason the less for going there. I want to settle myself in some town—for good—for life! A pleasant