IX.—­CLAUDE TO EUSTACE.

    Yet it is pleasant, I own it, to be in their company:  pleasant,
  Whatever else it may be, to abide in the feminine presence. 
  Pleasant, but wrong, will you say?  But this happy, serene coexistence
  Is to some poor soft souls, I fear, a necessity simple,
  Meat and drink and life, and music, filling with sweetness,
  Thrilling with melody sweet, with harmonies strange overwhelming,
  All the long-silent strings of an awkward, meaningless fabric. 
  Yet as for that, I could live, I believe, with children; to have those
  Pure and delicate forms encompassing, moving about you,
  This were enough, I could think; and truly with glad resignation
  Could from the dream of romance, from the fever of flushed adolescence,
  Look to escape and subside into peaceful avuncular functions. 
  Nephews and nieces! alas, for as yet I have none! and, moreover,
  Mothers are jealous, I fear me, too often, too rightfully; fathers
  Think they have title exclusive to spoiling their own little darlings;
  And by the law of the land, in despite of Malthusian doctrine,
  No sort of proper provision is made for that most patriotic,
  Most meritorious subject, the childless and bachelor uncle.

  X.—­CLAUDE TO EUSTACE.

    Ye, too, marvellous Twain, that erect on the Monte Cavallo
  Stand by your rearing steeds in the grace of your motionless movement,
  Stand with your upstretched arms and tranquil regardant faces,
  Stand as instinct with life in the might of immutable manhood,—­
  O ye mighty and strange, ye ancient divine ones of Hellas,
  Are ye Christian too? to convert and redeem and renew you,
  Will the brief form have sufficed, that a Pope has set up on the apex
  Of the Egyptian stone that o’ertops you the Christian symbol? 
  And ye, silent, supreme in serene and victorious marble,
  Ye that encircle the walls of the stately Vatican chambers,
  Juno and Ceres, Minerva, Apollo, the Muses and Bacchus,
  Ye unto whom far and near come posting the Christian pilgrims,
  Ye that are ranged in the halls of the mystic Christian pontiff,
  Are ye also baptized? are ye of the Kingdom of Heaven? 
  Utter, O some one, the word that shall reconcile Ancient and Modern! 
  Am I to turn me for this unto thee, great Chapel of Sixtus?

  XI.—­CLAUDE TO EUSTACE.

    These are the facts.  The uncle, the elder brother, the squire, (a
  Little embarrassed, I fancy,) resides in a family place in
  Cornwall, of course.  “Papa is in business,” Mary informs me;
  He’s a good sensible man, whatever his trade is.  The mother
  Is—­shall I call it fine?—­herself she would tell you refined, and
  Greatly, I fear me, looks down on my bookish and maladroit manners;
  Somewhat affecteth the blue; would talk to me often of poets;
  Quotes, which I hate, Childe Harold; but also appreciates Wordsworth;
  Sometimes adventures on Schiller; and then to religion diverges;
  Questions me much about Oxford; and yet, in her loftiest flights, still
  Grates the fastidious ear with the slightly mercantile accent.