to do for some ten days more, I suppose: and then he will be returning to his Cambridge. If we read very continuously we should be almost through the Book by this time: but, as you may imagine we play as well as work; some passage in the dear Book leads Cowell off into Sanskrit, Persian, or Goody Two Shoes, for all comes within the compass of his Memory and Application. Job came in to the help of Sancho a few days ago: and the Duenna Rodriguez’ age brought up a story Cowell recollected of an old Lady who persisted in remaining at 50; till being told (by his Mother) that she could not be elected to a Charity because of not being 64, she said ‘She thought she could manage it’; and the Professor shakes with Laughter not loud but deep, from the centre. . . .
Pray read in our Athenæum some letters of Severn’s about Keats, full of Love and intelligent Admiration, all the better for coming straight from the heart without any style at all. If I thought that Mr. Lowell would not find these Athenæums somewhere in Madrid, I would send them to him, as I would also to you in a like predicament. . . .
This letter has run on further than I expected: and I am now going to see Sancho off to his Island, under convoy of my Professor.
11 Marine Terrace, Lowestoft.
Septr. 22/79.
My dear Laurence,
Your letter found me here this morning: here, where I have now been near six weeks, for a month of which Edward Cowell and his Wife were my neighbours; and we had two or three hours of Don Quixote’s company of a morning, and only ourselves for company at night. They are gone, however; and I might have gone to my own home also, but that some Nephews and Nieces wished to see a little more of me; and I thought also that Lowestoft would be more amusing than Woodbridge to a young London Clerk, a Nephew of the Cowells, who comes to me for a short Holyday, when he can get away from his Desk. But early in October I shall be back at my old routine, stale enough. I think that, as a general rule, people should die at 70.
Yes: though Edwards was comparatively a Friend of late growth—he, and his brave wife—they encountered me down in my own country here, and we somehow suited one another; and I feel sad thinking of the pleasant days at Dunwich, which the Tide now rolling up here will soon reach. [277] . . .
I am here re-reading Forster’s Life of Dickens,
which seems to me a very good Book, though people say, I believe, there is too much Forster in it. At any rate, there is enough to show the wonderful Dæmonic Dickens: as pure an instance of Genius as ever lived; and, it seems to me, a Man I can love also.