ght before last I thought I would write my half-
yearly Enquiry about your Uncle: and at Noon came your Note. I judge
from it that he is well. I think he will thrash me (as Bentley said
{188b}) even now.

I must say I scarce knew what to do when asked to join in that Birthday
Address. I did not know whether it would be agreeable to your Uncle: and
of course I could not ask him. So I asked Spedding and Pollock, and
found they were of the Party: so it did not become me to hesitate. I
hope we were not all amiss.

But as to Agamemnon the King: I shall certainly send Mr. Norton a Copy,
as he has taken the trouble to send across the Atlantic for it. But as
to Mr. Carlyle, 'c'est une autre affaire.' It was not meant for any
Greek Scholar, and only for a few not Greek, who I thought would be
interested, as they have been, in my curious Version. Among these was
Mrs. Kemble, who I suppose it is has praised it in a way that somehow
gains ground in America. But your Uncle--a few years ago he would have
been perhaps a little irritated with it; and now would not, I feel sure,
care to spend his Eyes over its sixty or seventy pages. He would even
now think--but in Pity now--how much better one might have spent one's
time (though not very much was spent) than in such Dilettanteism. So
tell him not quite to break his heart if I don't put him to the Trial:
but still believe me his, and, if you will allow me, yours sincerely,

E. FITZGERALD.

_Fragment of a Letter to Miss Biddell_.

_Dec._ 1875.

Thank you for the paragraph about Shelley. Somehow I don't believe the
Story, {189} in spite of Trelawney's Authority. Let them produce the
Confessor who is reported to tell the Story; otherwise one does not need
any more than such a Squall as we have late had in these Seas, and yet
more sudden, I believe, in those, to account for the Disaster.

I believe I told you that my Captain Newson and his Nephew, my trusty
Jack, went in the Snow to the Norfolk Coast, by Cromer, to find Newson's
Boy. They found him, what remained of him, in a Barn there: brought him
home through the Snow by Rail thus far: and through the Snow by Boat to
Felixstow, where he is to lie among his Brothers and Sisters, to the
Peace of his Father's Heart.

_To S. Laurence_.

WOODBRIDGE. _Dec._ 30/75.

MY DEAR LAURENCE,

. . . I cannot get on with Books about the Daily Life which I find rather
insufferable in practice about me. I never could read Miss