"Yours most sincerely,
Randolph S. Churchill."
In this case, if in no other, the oracles of Caligraphy are set at naught. Here is a fine, twisty, twirling hand, all tails and loops, but not at all unsightly. The signature reads like "Lincoln," and only a careful study would detect that the "L" of "Lincoln" is preceded by a circular flourish which looks like part of the L but is really a capital C. It is the signature of that great scholar, Christopher Wordsworth, Bishop of Lincoln; and I remember that, in days of ecclesiastical strife, it was once imputed to that apostolic man for vanity that he signed his name "Lincoln" like a Temporal Peer. From that day he defined the "C" more carefully.
To the last letter which I bring to light to-day a different kind of interest attaches. It is dated
"Dingle Bank, Liverpool,
April 13, 1888."
The writing is small and clear, with the upstrokes and downstrokes rather long in comparison with the level letters; but some small blurs and blots show that the letter was written in unusual haste. It ends with these words: "Smalley has written a letter full of shriekings and cursings about my innocent article; the Americans will get their notion of it from that, and I shall never be able to enter America again.
"Ever yours,
M. A."
This was the last letter which Matthew Arnold ever wrote, and it closed a friendship which had been one of the joys and glories of my life.