on that the way to
learn a language is to argue in it. Accordingly I do so. I have tried
to convince them that the order of bishops is semi-apostolic, and that
if St. Paul did not actually wear a surplice himself, his successors
shortly afterwards did.

'One other thing, if you ever reply to this letter: would you copy out
a few of the most thickly marked lines in the "Grammarian's Funeral" in
my edition of Browning? They are always in my mind, but I can't quite
recollect how they go. There is no poem I like so much as that. I
would send you some butterflies, but I daren't kill them. Some of us
may have once been butterflies: as M. Arnold says,

'What was before us we know not,
And we know not what shall succeed.'

_To H. M. S._

'Habkern: August 1890.

'There is a French pensionnaire staying here, the same as I am. He is
very polite, but his tastes are diametrically opposite to mine. He
likes wine, walking, women, smoking, painting, violin and piano
playing, dogs, and the like.

'He asked me whether I liked the French. I told him "No," and gave him
a good many reasons. He abhors the Germans. I told him I thought the
Germans were a fine race. I'm occupying my time {18} in sleeping,
arguing, observing the natives, and reading a Tauchnitz edition of
"Martin Chuzzlewit," which is good, though already a young girl of
seventeen has been introduced, very beautiful and all the rest, and I'm
afraid she won't be poisoned, but marry a certain young man already
introduced. I'd give a good deal to be able to write a novel in which
all the young ladies tumbled out of windows, six stories high, and were
picked up dead. I think I must try and write one. Shall I dedicate it
to you? The heroine will be a plain old lady with white curls, close
on sixty-five, without any money, but with a certain amount of
intellect. There will be no marriages, but suicides and murders if
necessary.

'I'm inventing a German word of 1,000 letters. It is to be divided
into some 150 or 200 compartments. After each compartment there is
five minutes for refreshments. After about the 500th letter there will
be half an hour allowed for dinner. After the 600th letter or so there
will be a notice to the effect that no person with a weak heart may
proceed further without consulting a medical man. After about the
980th there will be a notice forbidding any one to go further until
their family doctor is in attendance. I have tho