of Algiers,
raving about one Fromentin, learning Spanish even! The wonderful purity
and warmth of the air seem to have relieved the larynx greatly. He
breathes and speaks much more easily than when we left London. I
sometimes feel when I look at him as though in this as in all else he
were unlike the common sons of men--as though to _him_ it might be
possible to subdue even this fell disease.'

Elsmere himself wrote--

'"I had not heard the half"--O Flaxman! An enchanted land--air, sun,
warmth, roses, orange blossom, new potatoes, green peas, veiled Eastern
beauties, domed mosques and preaching Mahdis--everything that feeds the
outer and the inner man. To throw the window open at waking to the depth
of sunlit air between us and the curve of the bay, is for the moment
heaven! One's soul seems to escape one, to pour itself into the luminous
blue of the morning. I am better--I breathe again.

'Mary flourishes exceedingly. She lives mostly on oranges, and has been
adopted by sixty nuns who inhabit the convent over the way, and sell us
the most delicious butter and cream. I imagine, if she were a trifle
older, her mother would hardly view the proceedings of these dear
berosaried women with so much equanimity.

'As for Rose, she writes more letters than Clarissa, and receives more
than an editor of the _Times_. I have the strongest views, as you know,
as to the vanity of letter-writing. There was a time when you shared
them, but there are circumstances and conjunctures, alas! in which no
man can be sure of his friend or his friend's principles. Kind friend,
good fellow, go often to Elgood Street. Tell me everything about
everybody. It is possible, after all, that I may live to come back to
them.'

But a week later, alas! the letters fell into a very different strain.
The weather had changed, had turned indeed damp and rainy, the natives
of course declaring that such gloom and storm in January had never been
known before. Edmondson wrote in discouragement. Elsmere had had a touch
of cold, had been confined to bed, and almost speechless. His letter was
full of medical detail, from which Flaxman gathered that, in spite of
the rally of the first ten days, it was clear that the disease was
attacking constantly fresh tissue. 'He is very depressed too,' said
Edmondson; 'I have never seen him so yet. He sits and looks at us in the
evening sometimes with eyes that wring one's heart. It is as though,
after having for a moment all