"For myself, I feel that I am having opportunities and neglecting them. However, I have always my work, have grappled with French, done something in Spanish, and have designs on the German language. But as you can only eat your artichoke a leaf at a time, French is my main occupation outside my business. I don't have time to play chess—and I presume Miss Gordon will give me a knight when we play next. You mustn't think me utterly good-for-naught. I have finished Carlyle's 'Frederick' in thirteen volumes—think of that! In the summer I dissipated in novels,—'Don Quixote,' 'Tom Jones,' 'Roderick Random,'—and now I am about to begin 'Romola,' which Bayard Taylor said yesterday was the best historical novel in our language. Remember me most kindly to all at home, and believe me to be, dear Pryor,
"Your friend sincerely,
"John Russell Young.
We had first known John Russell Young as a boy sent by Colonel Forney to report a speech of my husband's in Congress, now on the staff of the New York Herald. During a temporary residence in London he began a series of charming letters to my daughter—lasting until the end of his life. From London he wrote:—
"My dear Miss Gordon:—
"I send you two autographs—one is from Dinah Mulock Craik (who wrote 'John Halifax,' you know), the other from Mr. Gladstone, the former Premier. "I shall try to obtain an autograph of Carlyle, and his photograph, for your library. The old man is very hard to reach—he is very old. I have not seen George Eliot yet, but will. I dined with William Black last evening.
"I have had a good time in London. I never had so much attention in my life—I don't know how it happened, but so it fell. My Macmillan article opened the door, however, of every newspaper and magazine to me—and the door is of no use, except to look inside! But fancy the people I have met!—not, as I said, Carlyle or George Eliot (but she is possible when she comes home), but I think I have dined with nearly everybody else. Green—the short history man—and I have become good friends. I told him how much you liked his book, and he blushed like a June rose. I have dined with Huxley, Tyndall, Froude, Browning, Herbert Spencer, Kingsley, Bryce, Green, Norman Lockyer, William Black, Motley, and I don't know how many others,—so you see, as far as coming abroad has any value in enlarging one's horizon, I have not come in vain. You must forgive the vanity of all this, but when one is away from home, what can one do but write about one's own self?
"I wrote your father last week that I was about to come home. I packed all my trunks and engaged my room on the Adriatic, which sails on the 25th. A cable comes from Mr. Bennett asking me to await his coming. So I have unpacked my trunk and again resigned myself to the London fog. If you will gently break the news to the retired statesman who mourns over the decadence of the republic, you will be a dutiful child and my very good friend. I am very much disappointed in not going home. There is a little woman whose eyes are, I suppose, sad enough straining through the mists for a truant lord who seems to wander as long as Ulysses. There are friends whose faces it would be sunshine to see,—and there are duties in the way of educating public opinion on the question of the presidency,—all of which is only a roundabout way of saying I am homesick, and that I would give the best book in my library (you see how extravagant I am) if it were in my power to accept an invitation from your mother to tea. I would even run the risk of a quarrel with your father on politics! Remember me to all at home—to your mother with especial duty, and believe me, my dear Miss Gordon,
"Always yours sincerely,
"Jno. Russell Young."
"P.S.—From a letter your mother has kindly written me, I perceive you are to visit Virginia. Now if you will only justify the hopes of your friends and bring back a descendant of Pocahontas or Patrick Henry or of G. W. to be a comfort to your father and mother, I shall feel you have not visited Virginia in vain. However, as that is a subject from which I have often been warned away by the Pryor family, I shall not venture to give any advice.
"Again your friend sincerely,
"Jno. Russell Young."