[243a] W. B. Donne died June 20th, 1882.
[243b] This letter is in my possession, and as it indicates what Mr. Froude’s plan originally was, though he afterwards modified it, I have thought it worth while to give it in full.
‘5 Onslow Gardens, S.W.
‘May 19.‘Dear mr. FitzGerald,
‘Certainly you are no stranger to me. I have heard so often from Carlyle, and I have read so much in his letters, about your exertions, and about your entertainment of him at various times, that I can hardly persuade myself that I never saw you.
‘The letters you speak of must be very interesting, and I would ask you to let me see them if I thought that they were likely to be of use to me; but the subject with which I have to deal is so vast that I am obliged to limit myself, and so intricate that I am glad to be able to limit myself. I shall do what Carlyle desired me to do, i.e. edit the collection of his wife’s letters, which he himself prepared for publication.
‘This gift or bequest of his governs the rest of my work. What I have already done is an introduction to these letters. When they are published I shall add a volume of personal recollections of his later life; and this will be all. Had I been left unencumbered by special directions I should have been tempted to leave his domestic history untouched except on the outside, and have attempted to make a complete biography out of the general materials. This I am unable to do, and all that I can give the world will be materials for some other person to use hereafter. I can explain no further the conditions of the problem. But for my own share of it I have materials in abundance, and I must avoid being tempted off into other matters however important in themselves.
‘I may add for myself that I did not seek this duty, nor was it welcome to me. C. asked me to undertake it. When I looked through the papers I saw how difficult, how, in some aspects of it, painful, the task would be.
‘Believe me,
‘faithfully yours,
‘J. A. Froude.’
[245a] Printed in ‘Letters,’ ii. 332.
[245b] July 30th.
[247] Printed in ‘Letters,’ ii. 333.
[248] Here begins second half-sheet, dated ‘Monday, Sept. 5.’
[249] Partly printed in ‘Letters,’ ii. 335.
[250a] See letter of June 23rd, 1880.
[250b] Reprinted in ‘A Book of Sibyls,’ 1883.