except one very unimportant circumstance), but, in
reading documents to the House, had stopped short in sentences where no
stop was, and by so doing had utterly perverted their meaning.

This is to come out, of course, when said ---- gets the matter on. I
thought the case so changed, before I knew this, by his letter and that
of the other shipowners, that I told Morley, when I went down to the
theatre, that I felt myself called upon to relieve him from the
condition I had imposed.

For the rest, I am quite calmly confident that I only do justice to the
strength of my opinions, and use the power which circumstances have
given me, conscientiously and moderately, with a right object, and
towards the prevention of nameless miseries. I should be now
reproaching myself if I had not gone to the meeting, and, having been, I
am very glad.

A good illustration of a Government office. ---- very kindly wrote to me
to suggest that "Houses of Parliament" illustration. After I had dined
on Wednesday, and was going to jog slowly down to Drury Lane, it
suddenly came into my head that perhaps his details were wrong. I had
just time to turn to the "Annual Register," and _not one of them was
correct_!

This is, of course, in close confidence.

Ever affectionately.

[Sidenote: Mrs. Winter.]

_Tuesday, 3rd April, 1855._

MY DEAR MARIA,[61]

A necessity is upon me now--as at most times--of wandering about in my
old wild way, to think. I could no more resist this on Sunday or
yesterday than a man can dispense with food, or a horse can help himself
from being driven. I hold my inventive capacity on the stern condition
that it must master my whole life, often have complete possession of me,
make its own demands upon me, and sometimes, for months together, put
everything else away from me. If I had not known long ago that my place
could never be held, unless I were at any moment ready to devote myself
to it entirely, I should have dropped out of it very soon. All this I
can hardly expect you to understand--or the restlessness and waywardness
of an author's mind. You have never seen it before you, or lived with
it, or had occasion to think or care about it, and you cannot have the
necessary consideration for it. "It is only half-an-hour,"--"It is only
an afternoon,"--"It is only an evening," people say to me over and over
again; but they don't