ch pleasure we shall all miss if you are not among us--at
least for some part of the time.

If you find any unusually light appearance in the air at Brighton, it is
a distant refraction (I have no doubt) of the gorgeous and shining
surface of Tavistock House, now transcendently painted. The theatre
partition is put up, and is a work of such terrific solidity, that I
suppose it will be dug up, ages hence, from the ruins of London, by
that Australian of Macaulay's who is to be impressed by its ashes. I
have wandered through the spectral halls of the Tavistock mansion two
nights, with feelings of the profoundest depression. I have breakfasted
there, like a criminal in Pentonville (only not so well). It is more
like Westminster Abbey by midnight than the lowest-spirited man--say you
at present for example--can well imagine.

There has been a wonderful robbery at Folkestone, by the new manager of
the Pavilion, who succeeded Giovannini. He had in keeping L16,000 of a
foreigner's, and bolted with it, as he supposed, but in reality with
only L1,400 of it. The Frenchman had previously bolted with the whole,
which was the property of his mother. With him to England the Frenchman
brought a "lady," who was, all the time and at the same time,
endeavouring to steal all the money from him and bolt with it herself.
The details are amazing, and all the money (a few pounds excepted) has
been got back.

They will be full of sympathy and talk about you when I get home, and I
shall tell them that I send their loves beforehand. They are all
enclosed. The moment you feel hearty, just write me that word by post. I
shall be so delighted to receive it.

Ever, my dear Boy, your affectionate Friend.

[Sidenote: Mr. Walter Savage Landor.]

VILLA DES MOULINEAUX, BOULOGNE,
_Saturday Evening, July 5th, 1856._

MY DEAR LANDOR,

I write to you so often in my books, and my writing of letters is
usually so confined to the numbers that I _must_ write, and in which I
have no kind of satisfaction, that I am afraid to think how long it is
since we exchanged a direct letter. But talking to your namesake this
very day at dinner, it suddenly entered my head that I would come into
my room here as soon as dinner should be over, and write, "My dear
Landor, how are you?" for the pleasure of having the answer under your
own hand. That you _do_ write, and that pretty often, I k