The visits to the London exhibitions necessitated two or three journeys every year, and we both suffered from the separations; but I could bear them better in my own home—surrounded by my children, visited by my mother, sister, and brothers—than my husband, who was alone amongst strangers, and who had to live in hotels, a thing he had a great dislike for. In order to make these separations as short as possible, he travelled at night by the most rapid trains; saw the exhibitions in the day, and went to his rooms to write his articles by gas-light. For some time he only felt fatigued; afterwards he became nervous; but he found compensation in the society of his newly made friends, and in the increasing marks of recognition he was now meeting everywhere.
He soon gave up hotel life, and took lodgings in St. John's Wood, where he had many acquaintances, and from there he wrote to me:—
"I have seen Palgrave, Macmillan, Rossetti, Woolner, and Mr. Pearce to-day. Palgrave says the 'Saturday Review' 'is most proud to have me.' Woolner says it is not possible to succeed as an art critic more than I have done; that Tennyson has been very much interested in my articles, and has in consequence urged his publishers to employ Doré to illustrate the "Idylls of the King." They have offered the job to Doré, who has accepted.
"The best news is to come.
"The 'Painter's Camp' is a success after all. It has fully cleared its expenses, and Macmillan is willing to venture on a second edition, revised, and I think he will let me illustrate it; he only hesitates.
"Macmillan has positively given me a commission for a work on Etching.
"I am to be paid whether it succeeds or not. I cannot tell you the exact sum, but you shall know it soon.
"It is to be made up of articles in different reviews. It is to be a guinea work of 400 pages, beautifully got up, with 50 illustrative etchings by different masters, and is to be called 'Etching and Etchers.'
"Macmillan said that as to my capacity as a writer there existed no doubt on the subject. He fully expects this work on Etching to be a success. It is to be out for Christmas next.
"Macmillan is most favorably disposed to undertake other works, on condition that each shall have a special character like that. One on 'Painting in France' and another on 'Painting in England' looms in the future. He prefers this plan to the Year-book I mentioned to you.