n?

ME:
I have been at work all day.

Ever faithfully.

[Sidenote: The same.]

BOULOGNE, _Sunday, 7th August, 1853._

MY DEAR WILLS,

Can't possibly write autographs until I have written "Bleak House." My
work has been very hard since I have been here; and when I throw down my
pen of a day, I throw down myself, and can take up neither article.

The "C. P." is very well done, but I cannot make up my mind to lend my
blow to the great Forge-bellows of puffery at work. I so heartily desire
to have nothing to do with it, that I wish you would cancel this article
altogether, and substitute something else. As to the guide-books, I
think they are a sufficiently flatulent botheration in themselves,
without being discussed. A lurking desire is always upon me to put Mr.
----'s speech on Accidents to the public, as chairman of the Brighton
Railway, against his pretensions as a chairman of public instructors and
guardians. And I don't know but that I may come to it at some odd time.
This strengthens me in my wish to avoid the bellows.

How two men can have gone, one after the other, to the Camp, and have
written nothing about it, passes my comprehension. I have been in great
doubt about the end of ----. I wish you would suggest to him from me,
when you see him, how wrong it is. Surely he cannot be insensible to the
fact that military preparations in England at this time mean Defence.
Woman, says ----, means Home, love, children, Mother. Does he not find
any protection for these things in a wise and moderate means of
Defence; and is not the union between these things and those means one
of the most natural, significant, and plain in the world?

I wish you would send friend Barnard here a set of "Household Words," in
a paid parcel (on the other side is an inscription to be neatly pasted
into vol. i. before sending), with a post-letter beforehand from
yourself, saying that I had begged you to forward the books, feeling so
much obliged to him for his uniform attention and politeness. Also that
you will not fail to continue his set, as successive volumes appear.

ASPECTS OF NATURE.

We have had a tremendous sea here. Steam-packet in the harbour frantic,
and dashing her brains out against the stone walls.

Ever fait