housand pitiful things, and sets one up in
heart again. I am not surprised in the least by Bulwer's enthusiasm. I
was as confident about the effect of the book when I closed the first
volume, as I was when I closed the second with a full heart. No man less
in earnest than Eliot himself could have done it, and I make bold to add
that it never could have been done by a man who was so distinctly born
to do the work as Eliot was to do his.

Saturday at Hastings I must give up. I have wavered and considered, and
considered and wavered, but if I take that sort of holiday, I must have
a day to spare after it, and at this critical time I have not. If I were
to lose a page of the five numbers I have purposed to myself to be
ready by the publication day, I should feel that I had fallen short. I
have grown hard to satisfy, and write very slowly, and I have so much
bad fiction, that _will_ be thought of when I don't want to think of it,
that I am forced to take more care than I ever took.

Ever affectionately.

[Sidenote: Mrs. Storrar.]

GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
_Sunday Morning, May 15th, 1864._

MY DEAR MRS. STORRAR,

Our family dinner must come off at Gad's Hill, where I have improvements
to exhibit, and where I shall be truly pleased to see you and the doctor
again. I have deferred answering your note, while I have been scheming
and scheming for a day between this time and our departure. But it is
all in vain. My engagements have accumulated, and become such a whirl,
that no day is left me. Nothing is left me but to get away. I look
forward to my release from this dining life with an inexpressible
longing after quiet and my own pursuits. What with public speechifying,
private eating and drinking, and perpetual simmering in hot rooms, I
have made London too hot to hold me and my work together. Mary and
Georgina acknowledge the condition of imbecility to which we have become
reduced in reference to your kind reminder. They say, when I stare at
them in a forlorn way with your note in my hand: "What CAN you do!" To
which I can only reply, implicating them: "See what you have brought me
to!"

With our united kind regard to yourself and Dr. Storrar, I entreat your
pity and compassion for an unfortunate wretch whom a too-confiding
disposition has brought to this pass. If I had not allowed my "cheeild"