“DEAR FRIENDS,—­Writing letters or asking for them is not always the way to make one’s memory agreeable, but you are not among those people who shudder at letters, since you did say you would like to hear from us, and let us hear from you occasionally.  I have no good news to tell about myself; but to have my husband back again and enjoying his work is quite enough happiness to fall to one woman’s share in this world, where the stock of happiness is so moderate and the claimants so many.  He is deep in Aristotle’s Natural Science as the first step in a history of science, which he has for a long while been hoping that he should be able to write.  So you will understand his demand for brown folios.  Indeed, he is beginning to have a slight contempt for authors sufficiently known to the vulgar to be inserted in biographical dictionaries.  Hermolaus Barbaras is one of those distinguished by omission in some chief works of that kind; and we learned to our surprise from a don at Cambridge that he had never heard the name.  Let us hope there is an Olympus for forgotten authors.

“Our trial of the water cure at Malvern made us think with all the more emphasis of the possible effect on a too delicate and fragile friend at Florence.” [My wife.] “It really helped to mend George.  And as I hope the Florentine hydropathist may not be a quack as Dr.——­ at Malvern certainly is, I shall be disappointed if there is no good effect to be traced to ‘judicious packing and sitz baths’ that you can tell us of.  Did Beatrice enjoy her month’s dissipation at Leghorn?  And is the voice prospering?  Don’t let her quite forget us.  We make rather a feeble attempt at musical Saturday evenings, having a new grand piano, which stimulates musical desires.  But we want a good violin and violoncello—­difficult to be found among amateurs.  Having no sunshine one needs music all the more.  It would be difficult for you to imagine very truthfully what sort of atmosphere we have been living in here in London for the last month—­warm, heavy, dingy grey.  I have seen some sunshine once—­in a dream.  Do tell us all you can about yourselves.  It seems only the other day that we were shaking you by the hand; and all details will be lit up as if by your very voice and looks.  Say a kind word for me sometimes to the bright-eyed lady by whose side I sat in your balcony the evening of the National Fete.  At the moment I cannot recall her name.  We are going now to the British Museum to read—­a fearful way of getting knowledge.  If I had Aladdin’s lamp I should certainly use it to get books served up to me at a moment’s notice.  It may be better to search for truth than to have it at hand without seeking, but with books I should take the other alternative.

“Ever yours,

“M.E.  LEWES.”

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