g them--no bad Company. I was thinking of your
Pasta story of 'feeling' the Antique, etc., {53b} when reading in my dear
Ste. Beuve {53c} of my dear Madame du Deffand asking Madame de Choiseul:
'You _know_ you love me, but do you _feel_ you love me?' '_Quoi_? _vous
m'aimez donc_?' she said to her secretary Wiart, when she heard him
sobbing as she dictated her last letter to Walpole. {53d}

All which reminds me of one of your friends departed--Chorley--whose
Memoirs one now buys from Mudie for 2_s._ 6_d._ or so. And
well--_well_--worth to those who recollect him. I only knew him by
Face--and Voice--at your Father's, and your Sister's: and used to think
what a little waspish _Dilettante_ it was: and now I see he was something
very much better indeed: and I only hope I may have Courage to face my
Death as he had. Dickens loved him, who did not love Humbugs: and
Chorley would have two strips of Gadshill Yew {54} put with him in his
Coffin. Which again reminds me that--_a propos_ of your comments on
Dickens' crimson waistcoat, etc., Thackeray told me thirty years ago,
that Dickens did it, not from any idea of Cockney fashion: but from a
veritable passion for Colours--which I can well sympathize with, though I
should not exhibit them on my own Person--for very good reasons. Which
again reminds me of what you write about my abiding the sight of you in
case you return to England next year. Oh, my dear Mrs. Kemble, you must
know how wrong all that is--_tout au contraire_, in fact. Tell me a word
about Chorley when next you write: you said once that Mendelssohn laughed
at him: then, he ought not. How well I remember his strumming away at
some Waltz in Harley or Wimpole's endless Street, while your Sister and a
few other Guests went round. I thought then he looked at one as if
thinking 'Do you think me then--a poor, red-headed Amateur, as Rogers
does?' That old Beast! I don't scruple to say so.

I am positively looking over my everlasting Crabbe again: he naturally
comes in about the Fall of the Year. Do you remember his wonderful
'October Day'? {55}

'Before the Autumn closed,
When Nature, ere her Winter Wars, reposed
When from our Garden, as we looked above,
No Cloud was seen; and nothing seem'd to move;
When the wide River was a Silver Sheet,
And upon Ocean slept the unanchor'd fleet:
When the wing'd Insect settled in our Sight,
And waited Wind to recommence her flight.'

And th