"I am greatly encouraged by my success in understanding it" [the story of Robinson Crusoe in Arabic], "for it is a far more ambitious style and on far more various topics than I have ever before encountered; and when I get my Golin's I expect to get to the bottom of many words that puzzle me, though others are probably modern developments, especially quadrilaterals and words belonging to special arts. But there is a religious formula which recurs many times, every word of which is easy, and yet the whole of it is to me unintelligible. I suspect it is elliptical and allusive, and it occurs to me that it may be familiar to you; if so, I know you will have pleasure in explaining it to me. Whenever Robinson falls into distress and betakes himself to prayer, I meet these words:—
[Arabic]
and then follows the matter of sorrow. I also three times meet [Arabic] at the end of a sentence, where the meaning seems to be et alia ejusdem generis. I suppose it is an abridgment by initial letters. Can you help me to a solution? We have stuck here" [at Aberystwith] "longer than we intended; in fact, we should have left nearly a week ago, only that Mrs. N. caught a sharp cold, and the weather became suddenly so severe that I have feared to let her travel…. Probably, like all the world and his wife, you are yourself just now absent from home…. Do you not with me see that the Italians already are showing how vast a benefit L. N. has brought them? It is only the beginning of a vast revolution.
"I am, ever your true friend,
"F. W. Newman."
CHAPTER IX
LETTERS TO DR. NICHOLSON
In 1860 Sardinia, because it happened to possess the clever, far-seeing Count Cavour, had "dreamed against a distant goal"—the goal when his king should be made King of Italy, instead of only Sardinia. He only had to wait one year before his wish was attained. Victor Emmanuel, son of Charles Albert, King of Sardinia, was in 1861 proclaimed King of Italy, and nine years later he was head of the whole united nation. This is briefly touched on in Newman's first letter to Dr. Nicholson in January, 1860. He also spoke in strong praise of a book of Mrs. Beecher Stowe which he and his wife (then staying at Hastings to see the new year in, as they did the year before as well) were reading together. Mrs. Beecher Stowe was, of course, best known by her Uncle Tom's Cabin, perhaps the most popular American novel ever written. The Minister's Wooing was published in 1859.
[Illustrations: 20 WHITE ROCK PLACE, HASTINGS
1A CARLISLE PARADE, HASTINGS
WHERE FRANCIS NEWMAN OFTEN STAYED, IN 1860 AND EARLIER
From Photos taken in 1909 by Valentine Edgar Sieveking]
"1A Carlisle Parade, Hastings, 4th Jan., 1860.