letters I received from Mowbray, according to their dates: and will send
them--for once--through Coutts, in hopes that he may find you, as you
will not allow me to do without his help. Of that Death {243a} I say
nothing: as you may expect of me, and as I should expect of you also; if
I may say so.

I have been to pay my annual Visit to George Crabbe and his Sisters in
Norfolk. And here is warm weather come to us at last (as not unusual
after the Longest Day), and I have almost parted with my Bronchial
Cold--though, as in the old Loving Device of the open Scissors, 'To meet
again.' I can only wonder it is no worse with me, considering how my
contemporaries have been afflicted.

I am now reading Froude's Carlyle, which seems to me well done. Insomuch,
that I sent him all the Letters I had kept of Carlyle's, to use or not as
he pleased, etc. I do not think they will be needed among the thousand
others he has: especially as he tells me that his sole commission is, to
edit Mrs. Carlyle's Letters, for which what he has already done is
preparatory: and when this is completed, he will add a Volume of personal
Recollections of C. himself. Froude's Letter to me is a curious one: a
sort of vindication (it seems to me) of himself--quite uncalled for by
me, who did not say one word on the subject. {243b} The job, he says,
was forced upon him: 'a hard problem'--No doubt--But he might have left
the Reminiscences unpublisht, except what related to Mrs. C.--in spite of
Carlyle's oral injunction which reversed his written. Enough of all
this!

Why will you not 'initiate' a letter when you are settled for a while
among your Mountains? Oh, ye Medes and Persians! This may be
impertinent of me: but I am ever yours sincerely

E. F.G.

I see your Book advertised as 'ready.'

CVI. {245a}

[_August_, 1882.]

MY DEAR MRS. KEMBLE,

I have let the Full Moon {245b} go by, and very well she looked, too--over
the Sea by which I am now staying. Not at Lowestoft: but at the old
extinguished Borough of Aldeburgh, to which--as to other 'premiers
Amours,' I revert--where more than sixty years ago I first saw, and first
felt, the Sea--where I have lodged in half the houses since; and where I
have a sort of traditional acquaintance with half the population. 'Clare
Cottage' is where I write from; two little rooms--enough for me--a poor
civil Woman pleased to have me in them--oh, yes,--and a little spare
Bedroom in which I sto