Before the cavalcade and suite of Hardinge's (a melancholy procession)
reaches you, I think this letter will. You need not envy me my
purchases, which are imprudent ones: both because I can't well afford
them, and because I have no house to put them. And yet all this gives a
sense of stolen enjoyment to them. I am yet haunted with the ghost of a
Battle-piece (little in my way) at a shop in Holborn: by whom I know not:
but so good as to be cheap at 4 pounds: 10_s._, which the man wants for
it. My Twilight _is_ an upright picture: about a foot wide, and rather
more than a foot high.
Mr. Browne has declined taking my Opie, unless in conjunction with some
others which I won't part with: so the Forest Girl must set up her stall
at a Broker's. I doubt she will never bring me the money I gave for her.
She is the only bad speculation of the season. Were she but sold, I
should be rejoicing in the Holborn Battle Piece. After this year however
I think I shall bid complete adieu to picture-_hunting_: only taking what
comes in my way. There is a great difference between these two things:
both in the expense of time, thought, and money. Who can sit down to
Plato while his brains are roaming to Holborn, Christie's, Phillips's,
etc.?
My Father talks of going down to Suffolk early next week. Whether I
shall accompany him is not certain. Do you remember what a merry Good
Friday you and I passed last year? I suppose I shall find the banks
covered with primroses, the very name carries a dew upon it.
'As one who long in populous city pent, etc.' {111}
Good-bye. I am going to pay my compliments at Portland Place, and then
to walk in a contrary direction to Holborn.
_To F. Tennyson_.
[31 _March_, 1842.]