* * * *

VENICE, _8th March, 1877_.

That is entirely new and wonderful to me about the singing mouse.[21]
Douglas (was it the Douglas?) saying "he had rather hear the lark sing
than the mouse squeak" needs revision. It is a marvelous fact in
natural history.

The wind is singing a wild tune to-night--cannot be colder on our own
heaths--and the waves dash like our Waterhead. Oh me, when I'm walking
round it again how like a sad dream all this Venice will be!

[Footnote 21: A pleasant story that a friend sent me from France. The
mouse often came into their sitting-room and actually sang to them,
the notes being a little like a canary's.--S. B.]

* * * * *

VENICE, _15th May, 1877_.

I've not tumbled into the lagoons, nor choked myself in a passion, nor
gone and made a monk of myself--nor got poisoned by the Italian cooks.

I'm packing up, and coming to the Thwaite as soon as ever I can--after
a little Alpine breathing of high air.

I'm pretty well--if you'll forgive me for being so naughty--else I
can't be even plain well--but I'm always your loving----

[Transcriber's Note: no ending to the sentence here.]

* * * * *

OXFORD, _2d December_ (1877).

I write first to you this morning to tell you that I gave yesterday
the twelfth and last[22] of my course of lectures this term, to a room
crowded by six hundred people, two-thirds members of the University,
and with its door wedged open by those who could not get in; this
interest of theirs being granted to me, I doubt not, because for the
first time in Oxford, I have been able to speak to them boldly of
immortal life. I intended when I began the course only to have read
"Modern Painters" to them; but when I began, some of your favorite
bits interested the men so much, and brought so much larger a
proportion of undergraduates than usual, that I took pains to
reinforce and press them home; and people say I have never given so
useful a course yet. But it has taken all my time and strength, and I
have not been able even to tell Susie a word about it until now. In
one of my lectures I made my text your pretty peacock and the
design[23] of him. But did not venture to say what really must be true,
that his voice is an example of "the Devil sowed tares," and of the
angels letting both grow toget