The best wish I can make for you is that every day of your passage may be as fine as this which is a mixture of all that is sweetest in spring time. May the dry masts of your steamer be covered with leaves and flowers like Joseph’s rod, and may the porpoises gamble about you for the children’s sake....
No iceberg come anigh thee,
No curdling east wind try thee,
The wreaths of the wake
Whirl in moons for thy sake,
And the fogs furl off and fly thee!
My heart is fuller than I dreamed of with this parting, but it is not foreboding I am sure. I shall find you all again after many days, and we shall have many happy hours together....
To T. B. Aldrich.
Paris, 28 May, 1873.
...I shall stay out my two years, though personally I would rather be at home. In certain ways this side is more agreeable to my tastes than the other,—but even the buttercups stare at me as a stranger and the birds have a foreign accent....
Before this reaches you I shall have been over to Oxford to get a D. C. L. So by the time you get it this will be the letter of a Doctor and entitled to the more respect. Perhaps, in order to get the full flavor, you had better read this passage first, if you happen to think of it. Do you not detect a certain flavor of parchment and Civil Law?...
To Thomas Hughes.
Paris, 2 June, 1873.