look for practical measures from him: one must be content with him as a great satirist who can make us feel when we are wrong though he cannot set us right. There is a bottom of truth in Carlyle’s wildest rhapsodies. I have no news to tell you of books or music, for I scarce see or hear any. And moreover I must be up, and leave the mahogany coffee-room table on which I write so badly: and be off to Lincoln’s Inn. God bless you, my dear fellow. I ask a man of business here in the room about Grimsby: he says, ‘Well, all these railways are troublesome; but the Grimsby one is one of the best: railway property must look up a little: and so will Grimsby.’
To W. B. Donne.
Boulge: Friday [4 Oct. 1850].
My dear Donne,
I have been some while intending to send you a few lines, to report my continued existence, to thank you for the Papers, which I and my dear old Crabbe read and mark, and to tell you I was much pleased with Laurence’s sketch of you, which he exhibited to me in a transitory way some weeks ago. Has he been to Bury again? To Sir H. Bunbury’s?
I am packing up my mind by degrees to move away from here on a round of visits: and will give you a look at Bury if you like it. I am really frightened that it is a whole year since I have seen
you: and we but two hours asunder! I know it is not want of will on my part: though you may wonder what other want detains me; but you will believe me when I say it is not want of will. You are too busy to come here: where indeed is nothing to come for. I wished for Charles last Monday: for people came to shoot the three brace of pheasants inhabiting these woods: had I remembered the first of October, I would have let him know. Otherwise, I am afraid to invite the young, whom I cannot entertain.
H. Groome came over and dined with me on Wednesday: and Crabbe came to meet him; but the latter had no hearty smoker to keep him in countenance, and was not quite comfortable. H. Groome improves: his poetical and etymological ambitions begin to pale away before years that bring the philosophic mind, and before a rising family.
I liked your Articles on Pepys much. How go on the Norfolk worthies? I see by your review that you are now ripe to write them at your ease: which means (in a work of that kind) successfully.
To F. Tennyson.