[He writes at greater length to Mr. Knowles]
3 Jevington Gardens, Eastbourne, March 10, 1889.
My dear Knowles,
There's a Divinity that shapes the ends (of envelopes!) rough-hew them how we will. This time I went and bought the strongest to be had, and sealed him up with wax in the shop. I put no note inside, meaning to write to you afterwards, and then I forgot to do so.
I can't understand Peterborough nohow. However, so far as the weakness of the flesh would permit me to abstain from smiting him and his brother Amalekite, I have tried to turn the tide of battle to matters of more importance.
The pith of my article is the proposition that Christ was not a Christian. I have not ventured to state my thesis exactly in that form—fearing the Editor—but, in a mild and proper way, I flatter myself I have demonstrated it. Really, when I come to think of the claims made by orthodox Christianity on the one hand, and of the total absence of foundation for them on the other, I find it hard to abstain from using a phrase which shocked me very much when Strauss first applied it to the Resurrection, "Welthistorischer Humbug!"
I don't think I have ever seen the portrait you speak of. I remember the artist—a clever fellow, whose name, of course, I forget—but I do not think I saw his finished work. Some of these days I will ask to see it.
I was pretty well finished after the wedding, and bolted here the next day. I am sorry to say I could not get my wife to come with me. If she does not knock up I shall be pleasantly surprised. The young couple are flourishing in Paris. I like what I have seen of him very much.
What is the "Cloister scheme"? [It referred to a plan for using the cloisters of Westminster Abbey to receive the monuments of distinguished men, so as to avoid the necessity of enlarging the Abbey itself.] Recollect how far away I am from the world, the flesh and the d—.
Are you and Mrs. Knowles going to imitate the example of Eginhard and
Emma? What good pictures you will have in your monastery church!