dy, and reading Goethe which he never tires of: glancing
over Reviews which he calls 'Floods of Nonsense,' etc. I sent them
Groome's 'Only Darter,' which I think so good that I shall get him to let
me print it for others beside those of the Ipswich Journal: it seems to
me a beautiful Suffolk 'Idyll' (why not _Ei_dyll?) and so it seemed to
those at Chelsea. By the by, I will send you their Note, if Groome
returns it to me.

_To C. E. Norton_.

_July_ 2/78.

MY DEAR NORTON,

You wrote me a very kind Invitation--to your own home--in America! But
it is all too late for that; more on account of habit than time of life:
I will not repeat what I feel sure I have told you before on that
subject. You will be more interested by the enclosed note: of which this
is the simple Story. Some three weeks ago I wrote my half-yearly note of
enquiry to Carlyle's Niece; he was, she said, quite well; walking by the
river before Breakfast: driving out of an Afternoon: constantly reading:
just then reading Goethe of whom he never tired: and glancing over
Magazines and Reviews which he called 'Floods of Nonsense, Cataracts of
Twaddle,' etc. I had sent him the enclosed paper, {253} written by a
Suffolk Archdeacon for his Son's East Anglian Notes and Queries: and now
reprinted, with his permission, by me, for the benefit of others,
yourself among the number. Can you make out the lingo, and see what I
think the pretty Idyll it tells of? If I were in America, at your home,
I would recite it to you; nay, were the Telephone prepared across the
Atlantic! Well: it was sent, as I say, to Carlyle: who, by what his
Niece replied, I suppose liked it too. And, by way of return, I suppose,
he sends me a Volume of Norway Kings and Knox: which I was very glad to
have, not only as a token of his Good Will, but also because Knox was, I
believe, the only one of his works I had not read. And I was obliged to
confess to him in my acknowledgment of his kindly Present, that I
relished these two children of his old Age as much as any of his more
fiery Manhood. I had previously asked if he knew anything of John
Wesley's Journal, which I was then re-perusing; as he his Goethe: yes, he
knew that Wesley too, and 'thought as I did about it' his Niece said; and
in reply to my Question if he knew anything of two 'mountains' (as
English people called hills a hundred years ago) which Wesley says were
called 'The Peas' at Dunbar {254}--why, here is his Answer: e