_To the Viscountess Wolseley._
Lamb House, Rye.
Dec. 29, 1900.
Dearest Lady Wolseley,
This is a very faint and meagre little word, addressed to you late of a
terrifically windy winter's night by an old friend who doesn't happen[B]
to be in very good physical case (only for the moment, thank goodness,
probably!) and yet who doesn't want the New Year to edge an hour nearer
before he has made you Both--made you all Three--a sign of affectionate
remembrance amounting to tenderness pure and simple. I wish there were a
benediction I could call down on your house and your associated life in
sufficiently immediate and visible form: you would then see it flutter
into your midst and perch upon your table even while you read these
lines. I have thought of you constantly these past weeks, and have only
not written to you from the fear of appearing to assume that your
retirement has been to you woeful or in any degree heart-breaking. I
couldn't congratulate you positively, on the event, and yet I hated to
_condole_, in the case of people so gallant and distinguished. So I have
been hovering about you in thought like an anxious mother armed, in the
evening air, with a shawl or extra wrap, for a pair of belated but
high-spirited children liable to feel a chill, but not quite venturing
to approach the young people and clap the article on their shoulders. I
have remained in short with my warm shawl on my hands, but if I were
near you I should clap it straight on your shoulders at the first
symptom of a shiver, and wrap it close round and tuck it thoroughly in.
Forgive this feeble image of the confirmed devotion I hold at your
service. To see you will be a joy and a relief--the next time I go up to
town: I mean if it so befalls that you are then in residence at the
Palace. I do go up on the 31st--Monday next--to stay till Easter: where
my address is 105 _Pall Mall, S. W._, and if you _should_ be at Hampton
Court the least sign from you would bring me begging for a cup of tea. I
hope, meanwhile, with all my heart, that these weeks spent in looking,
after so many years, Comparative Leisure in the face, have had somewhat
the effect of mitigating the austerity of that countenance. There are
opportunities always lurking in it--the opportunity, heaven-sent, in
Lord Wolseley's case--as I venture to think of it--of sitting down
again to the engaging Marlborough. But here I am talking as if you
wouldn't know what to do! Whatever you do, or don't, please believe,
both of you, in the great personal affection that prompts this and that
calls toward you, to the threshold of the New Year, every pleasant
possibility and all ease and honour and, so far as you will consent to
it, rest.
Yours, dear Lady Wolseley, always and ever, and more than ever,