have been best, but which I did not like quite to propose.
Now, supposing that on Thursday you dine in town, remember not to be
unnecessarily 'perplext in the extreme' where to spend the time before
... _five_, ... shall I say, at any rate? We will have the lamp, and I
can easily explain if an observation should be made ... only it will
not be, because our goers-out here never come home until six, and the
head of the house, not until seven ... as I told you. George thought
it worth while going to Mr. Talfourd's yesterday, just to see the
author of 'Paracelsus' dance the Polka ... should I not tell you?

I am vexed by another thing which he tells _me_--vexed, if amused a
little by the absurdity of it. I mean that absurd affair of the
'Autography'--now _isn't_ it absurd? And for neither you nor George to
have the chivalry of tearing out that letter of mine, which was absurd
too in its way, and which, knowing less of the world than I know now,
I wrote as if writing for my private conscience, and privately
repented writing in a day, and have gone on repenting ever since when
I happened to think enough of it for repentance! Because if Mr.
Serjeant Talfourd sent then his 'Ion' to _me_, he did it in mere
good-nature, hearing by chance of me through the publisher of my
'Prometheus' at the moment, and of course caring no more for my
'opinion' than for the rest of me--and it was excessively bad taste in
me to say more than the briefest word of thanks in return, even if I
had been competent to say it. Ah well!--you see how it is, and that I
am vexed _you_ should have read it, ... as George says you did ... he
laughing to see me so vexed. So I turn round and avenge myself by
crying aloud against the editor of the 'Autography'! Surely such a
thing was never done before ... even by an author in the last stage of
a mortal disease of self-love. To edit the common parlance of
conventional flatteries, ... lettered in so many volumes, bound in
green morocco, and laid on the drawing-room table for one's own
particular private public,--is it not a miracle of vanity ... neither
more nor less?

I took the opportunity of the letter to Mr. Mathews (talking of vanity
... _mine_!) to send Landor's verses to America ... yours--so they
will be in the American papers.... I know Mr. Mathews. I was speaking
to him of your last number of 'Bells and Pomegranates,' and the verses
came in naturally; just as my speaking did, for it is not the first
time