I had written to Mowbray Donne to ask about himself and his Wife: and herewith I enclose his Answer—very sad, and very manly. You shall return it if you please; for I set some store by it.
Now I am reading—have almost finished—Jane Carlyle’s Letters. I dare say you have already heard them more than enough discussed in London; and therefore I will only say that it is at any rate fine of old Carlyle to have laid himself so easily open to public Rebuke, though whether such Revelations are fit for Publicity is another question. At any rate, it seems to me that half her letters, and all his ejaculations of Remorse summed up in a Preface, would have done better. There is an Article by brave Mrs. Oliphant in this month’s Contemporary Review [259] (or
Magazine) well worth reading on the subject; with such a Challenge to Froude as might almost be actionable in Law. We must ‘hear both sides,’ and wait for the Volume which [is] to crown all his Labours in this Cause.
I think your Leamington Country is more in Leaf than ours ‘down-East:’ which only just begins to ‘stand in a mist of green.’ [260] By the by, I lately heard from Hallam Tennyson that all his Party were well enough; not having been to London this Spring because Alfred’s Doctor had warned him against London Fogs, which suppress Perspiration, and bring up Gout. Which is the best piece of news in my Letter; and I am
Yours always and a Day
E. F.G.
P.S. I do not enclose Mowbray’s letter, as I had intended to do, for fear of my own not finding you.
CXIII.
[May, 1883.]
My dear Lady;
Stupid me! And now, after a little hunt, I find poor Mowbray’s Letter, which I had made sure of having sent you. But I should not now send it if I did not implore you not to write in case you