I have been a little obscure in direction about the Egyptian asterisk in last Fors. The circle in the middle is to be left solid; the rays round are to be cut quite shallow; not in deep furrows, as in wood, but like rising, sharp, cliff-edged harbours with flat bottoms of sand; as little of the hard rock being cut away as may be.
The Etrurian Leucothea has come at last; but please let my readers observe that my signature to it means only that it will answer our purpose, not that it is a good print, for Mr. Parker’s agent is a ‘Grober Baur,’ and will keep neither time nor troth in impressions. Farther, I have now put into Mr. Ward’s hands a photograph from a practice-sketch of my own at Oxford, in pure lead pencil, on grey paper secured with ink on the outlines, and touched with white on the lights. It is of a stuffed Kingfisher,—(one can’t see a live one in England nowadays,) and done at full speed of hand; aid it is to be copied for a balance practice to the slow spiral lines. [[163]]
NOTES AND CORRESPONDENCE.
I. Affairs of the Company.
I have given leave to two of our Companions to begin work on the twenty acres of ground in Worcestershire, given us by Mr. George Baker, our second donor of land; (it was all my fault that he wasn’t the first). The ground is in copsewood; but good for fruit trees; and shall be cleared and brought into bearing as soon as the two Companions can manage it. We shall now see what we are good for, working as backwoods-men, but in our own England.
I am in treaty for more land round our Sheffield museum; and have sent down to it, for a beginning of the mineralogical collection, the agates on which I lectured in February at the London Institution. This lecture I am printing, as fast as I can, for the third number of ‘Deucalion;’ but I find no scientific persons who care to answer me any single question I ask them about agates; and I have to work all out myself; and little hitches and twitches come, in what one wants to say in print. And the days go.
Subscriptions since March 14th to April 16th. I must give names, now; having finally resolved to have no secrets in our Company,—except those which must be eternally secret to certain kinds of persons, who can’t understand either our thoughts or ways:— [[164]]
| £ | s. | d. | ||
| March. | F. D. Drewitt (tithe of a first earning) | 1 | 4 | 1 |
| Miss M. Guest | 2 | 2 | 0 | |
| April. | James Burdon (tithe of wages) | 2 | 10 | 0 |
| Wm. B. Graham (gift) | 1 | 0 | 0 | |
| Anonymous (post stamp, Birkenhead) | 1 | 10 | 0 | |
| £8 | 6 | 1 |
II. Affairs of the Master.
| £ | s. | d. | |||||
| March 16. | Balance | 1471 | 8 | 11 | |||
| 21. | Miss O. Hill, 1½ year’s rent on Marylebone Freehold | 90 | 5 | 0 | |||
| 28. | R. Forsyth (tea-shop) | 54 | 0 | 0 | |||
| April 7. | Dividend on £7000 Bank Stock | 315 | 0 | 0 | |||
| 8. | Petty cash (Dividends on small shares in Building Societies and the like) | 25 | 3 | 3 | |||
| 1956 | 6 | 4 | |||||
| March 21. | Jackson | £50 | 0 | 0 | |||
| 22. | Self[4] | 100 | 0 | 0 | |||
| 23. | Warren and Jones | 56 | 16 | 3 | |||
| 25, | and April 7. Crawley | 40 | 0 | 0 | |||
| April 1. | Secretary | 25 | 0 | 0 | |||
| 1. | Downs | 25 | 0 | 0 | |||
| 2. | Kate, (and 11th April) | 45 | 0 | 0 | |||
| 6. | Burgess | 50 | 0 | 0 | |||
| 6. | David | 53 | 0 | 0 | |||
| 444 | 16 | 3 | |||||
| Balance, April 16. | £1511 | 10 | 1 | ||||