The last question in your letter, which nevertheless heads it, having been added on over the date, "How is your health?" I can answer satisfactorily—much better.... I am much delighted at you and Dorothy reserving your visit to Battle Abbey till I come to you, and only hope the weather may give you no cause to regret having done so. I have promised Emily to go down to Bannisters in December, and shall then pay you my visit at St. Leonard's.
I do much wish to be once more with you and Dorothy. I have just concluded a very pleasant arrangement with Arthur Malkin and his wife for staying a few days in the neighborhood of the lakes with them, between Keswick and Ambleside, after I leave Howick.
The weather is, I believe, generally favorable for that scenery as late as November. I have never seen the English lakes, and am not likely soon to have so pleasant an opportunity of doing so.
I have received an application from the York manager to act at Leeds, and having agreed to do so, think I shall probably also act a few nights at York, Hull, and Sheffield, while I am thereabouts; all which, together with my visit to the Ellesmeres, will take up so much of my time that I doubt my being more than a month or three weeks in Orchard Street before my term of possession there expires.... I shall be able to answer your questions about the Combes better when I am with them, but besides my own observation I have the testimony of the ——s to the fact of their having become much more aggressive in their feeling and conversation with regard to "Church abuses," "theological bigotry," and even Christianity itself. I am sorry to hear this; but if they hurt me, I shall heal myself by looking at the Vatican I had a letter from E—— the other day. I am delighted to say that they have quite determined to return in the spring, and it is just possible that I may see them before I leave England. E——'s account of the Roman reforms is most encouraging, and I must give you an extract from his letter about them. "A very important decree was published on the 2d of this month, relative to the organization of a municipal council and magistracy for the city of Rome. Besides the ordinary duties of a municipality, such as public works, octroi, etc., it is to have the direction of education. This is a circumstance the consequence of which it is impossible to overrate or to foresee. Hitherto, education has been monopolized by the clergy, and moreover by the Jesuits (whose schools have always been the best by a very great deal, to give the devil his due). The new law does not abolish their establishments, or interfere with them in any way, but the liberal feeling being so strong in the country, the rising generation will be almost entirely educated in the schools founded by the municipality; it is the greatest blow the hierarchy has yet received. The council consists of a hundred members, chosen from different classes of society. It is first named by the Pope, and then renews itself by elections; there are only four members to represent the ecclesiastical bodies." There, Hal, what do you think of that? I sit and think of that most lovely land, emerging gloriously into a noble political existence once more, till I almost feel like a poet. Love to Dorothy.... I only make Hayes sensible that she is a fool twice a week on an average, not twice a day. Yours ever,