Now my Eyes have had enough of this vile steel pen; and so have yours, I should think: and I will mix a Glass of poor Sherry and Water, and fill a Pipe, and think of you while I smoke it. Think of me sometimes as
Yours always sincerely,
E. F.G.
P.S. I shall venture this Letter with no further Address than I remember now.
XVII.
Little Grange: Woodbridge, May 2/74.
Dear Mrs. Kemble,
My Castle Clock has gone 9 p.m., and I myself am but half an hour home from a Day to Lowestoft. Why I should begin a Letter to you under these circumstances I scarce know. However, I have long been intending to write: nay, actually did write half a Letter which I mislaid. What I wanted to tell you was—and is—that Donne is going
on very well: Mowbray thinks he may be pronounced ‘recovered.’ You may have heard about him from some other hand before this: I know you will be glad to hear it at any time, from any quarter.
This my Castle had been named by me ‘Grange Farm,’ being formerly a dependency of a more considerable Château on the hill above. But a fine tall Woman, who has been staying two days, ordered me to call it ‘Little Grange.’ So it must be. She came to meet a little Niece of mine: both Annies: one tall as the other is short: both capital in Head and Heart: I knew they would fadge well: so they did: so we all did, waiting on ourselves and on one another. Odd that I have another tip-top Annie on my small list of Acquaintances—Annie Thackeray.
I wonder what Spring is like in America. We have had an April of really ‘magnifique’ Weather: but here is that vixen May with its N.E. airs. A Nightingale however sings so close to my Bedroom that (the window being open) the Song is almost too loud.