I write to you so often in my books, and my writing of letters is
usually so confined to the numbers that I _must_ write, and in which I
have no kind of satisfaction, that I am afraid to think how long it is
since we exchanged a direct letter. But talking to your namesake this
very day at dinner, it suddenly entered my head that I would come into
my room here as soon as dinner should be over, and write, "My dear
Landor, how are you?" for the pleasure of having the answer under your
own hand. That you _do_ write, and that pretty often, I know beforehand.
Else why do I read _The Examiner_?
We were in Paris from October to May (I perpetually flying between that
city and London), and there we found out, by a blessed accident, that
your godson was horribly deaf. I immediately consulted the principal
physician of the Deaf and Dumb Institution there (one of the best
aurists in Europe), and he kept the boy for three months, and took
unheard-of pains with him. He is now quite recovered, has done extremely
well at school, has brought home a prize in triumph, and will be
eligible to "go up" for his India examination soon after next Easter.
Having a direct appointment, he will probably be sent out soon after he
has passed, and so will fall into that strange life "up the country,"
before he well knows he is alive, which indeed seems to be rather an
advanced stage of knowledge.
And there in Paris, at the same time, I found Marguerite Power and
Little Nelly, living with their mother and a pretty sister, in a very
small, neat apartment, and working (as Marguerite told me) hard for a
living. All that I saw of them filled me with respect, and revived the
tenderest remembrances of Gore House. They are coming to pass two or
three weeks here for a country rest, next month. We had many long talks
concerning Gore House, and all its bright associations; and I can
honestly report that they hold no one in more gentle and affectionate
remembrance than you. Marguerite is still handsome, though she had the
smallpox two or three years ago, and bears the traces of it here and
there, by daylight. Poor little Nelly (the quicker and more observant of
the two) shows some little tokens of a broken-off marriage in a face too
careworn for her years, but is a very winning and sensible creature.
We are expecting Mary Boyle too, shortly.
I have just been propounding to Forster if it is not a wonderful
testimony to the homely force of truth, that one of the most popular
books on earth has nothing in it to make anyone laugh or cry? Yet I
think, with some confidence, that you never did either over any passage
in "Robinson Crusoe." In particular, I took Friday's death as one of the
least tender and (in the true sense) least sentimental things ever
written. It is a book I read very much; and the wonder of its prodigious
effect on me and everyone, and the admiration thereof, grows on me the
more I observe this curious fact.
Kate and Georgina send you their kindest loves, and smile approvingly on
me from the next room, as I bend over my desk. My dear Landor, you see
many I daresay, and hear from many I have no doubt, who love you
heartily; but we silent people in the distance never forget you. Do not
forget us, and let us exchange affection at least.
Ever your Admirer and Friend.
[Sidenote: The Duke of Devonshire.]
VILLA DES MOULINEAUX, NEAR BOULOGNE,
_Saturday Night, July 5th, 1856._