asquerade_." I am at it: Circumspice!'

So I pick out and point to other Men's Game, this Sunday Morning, when
the Sun makes the Sea shine, and a strong head wind drives the Ships with
shortened Sail across it. Last night I was with some Sailors at the Inn:
some one came in who said there was a Schooner with five feet water in
her in the Roads: and off they went to see if anything beside water could
be got out of her. But, as you say, one mustn't be epigrammatic and
clever. Just before Grog and Pipe, the Band had played some German
Waltzes, a bit of Verdi, Rossini's 'Cujus animam,' and a capital Sailors'
Tramp-chorus from Wagner, all delightful to me, on the Pier: how much
better than all the dreary oratorios going on all the week at Norwich;
Elijah, St. Peter, St. Paul, Eli, etc. There will be an Oratorio for
every Saint and Prophet; which reminds me of my last Story. Voltaire had
an especial grudge against Habakkuk. Some one proved to him that he had
misrepresented facts in Habakkuk's history. 'C'est egal,' says V.,
'Habakkuk etait capable de tout.' Cornewall Lewis, who (like most other
Whigs) had no Humour, yet tells this: I wonder if it will reach Dresden.

_To Mrs. W. H. Thompson_.

LITTLE GRANGE, WOODBRIDGE.
_Sept._ 23, [1875].

DEAR MRS. THOMPSON,

It is very good of you to write to me, so many others as, I know, you
must have to write to. I can tell you but little in return for the Story
of your Summer Travel: but what little I have to say shall be said at
once. As to Travel, I have got no further than Norfolk, and am rather
sorry I did not go further North, to the Scottish Border, at any rate.
But now it is too late. I have contented myself with my Boat on the
River here: with my Garden, Pigeons, Ducks, etc.; a great Philosopher
indeed! But (to make an end of oneself) I have not been well all the
summer; unsteady in head and feet; the Beginning of the End, I suppose;
and if the End won't be too long spinning out, one cannot complain of its
coming too soon. . . .

I had a kindly Letter from Carlyle some days ago: he was summering at
some place near Bromley in Kent, lent him by a Lady Derby; once, he says,
Lady Salisbury, which I don't understand. He had also the use of a
Phaeton and Pony; which latter he calls '_Shenstone_' from a partiality
to stopping at every Inn door. Carlyle had been a little touched in
revisiting Eltham, and remembering Frank Edgeworth who resided there
forty years ag