deal every day, for the
weather is lovely, and the blessed blue sky an inexhaustible source of
delight and enjoyment to me.

To-morrow I am obliged to go out to the farm upon business. I shall go
on horseback (upon the legs of my Tennyson article), and expect not only
pleasure but profit from my old habitual exercise; but I would a little
rather not be going _there_ at all.

I went all over our town house yesterday. It is a fine house, and has an
excellent garden, with quite large trees in it. It is let unfurnished
for about half the price which such a house in London would command. I
confess it was rather a trial to return from looking at this large house
of--_mine?_ to the "Maison Vauquier" (see Balzac's "Pere Goriot") which
we inhabit.

Thank you for your offer of helping me with my review. I could not
possibly think of using your eyes, precious and perilled as they are,
instead of my own. I dare say I shall manage with my own translated
acquaintance with AEschylus and Homer. However, and at any rate, if I
find it necessary to _cram_, I will not do so by proxy.

Good-bye. Give my kindest love to S----.... How is Master C----? How is
his voice? Has he worked out that problem yet about that vexed question
on which he threw so much light at your house, and about which you were
so tiresome? Seriously, that lad is a clever fellow; and I assure you we
perpetrated some pretty profound metaphysics between your house and the
Astor Hotel that wet Sunday evening.

Believe me yours truly,
F. A. B.

[The young gentleman alluded to in the above letter, who was
visiting the United States, and had brought letters of introduction
to my friends in New York, was the son of an old Yorkshire family,
among whom had existed for several generations a passionate desire
to _fly_, and a firm conviction that they could invent a machine
which would enable them to do so. The last I heard of that young
Icarus above mentioned was from two of his friends and companions,
the sons of Mrs. Norton, who, standing with me above the tremendous
precipice called the Salto di Tiberio, which plunges from the edge
of the rocks of Capri straight down into the Mediterranean, told me
they had had all the difficulty in the world in preventing C----
from launching forth upon his flying machine from that stupendous