[June, 1866.]
My dear Thompson,
I won’t say that I should have gone to Ely under any Circumstances, though it is the last Place I have been to stay at with a Friend: three years ago! And all my Stays there were very pleasant indeed: and I do not the less thank you for all your Constancy and Kindness. But one is got down yet deeper in one’s Way of Life: of which enough has been said.
William Airy was to have come here about this time: and him I am obliged to put off because another old Fellow Collegian, Duncan, [77] who has scarce stirred from his Dorsetshire Parsonage these twenty years, was seized with a Passion to see me just once more, he says: and he is now with me: a Hypochondriack Man, nervous, and restless, with a vast deal of uncouth Humour. . . .
My Ship is afloat, with a new Irish Ensign; but I
have scarce been about with her yet owing to ‘Mr. Wesley’s Troubles.’ [78a]
Only yesterday I took down my little Tauchnitz Sophocles to carry to Sea with me; and made Duncan here read—
οποια χρηζει ρηyνυτω· τουμον δ' εyω, [78b] etc.
and began to blubber a little at
ω φίλτατ' Αιyέως παι, μονοις ου yίyνεται, etc.