present great monarch.  I hope I have not done wrong in confessing my faith.  Holding back an opinion is often as much a falsehood as the actual untruth itself, and so I think it would be here.  Now we have the book, do you remember through whom you sent the notices?  If you do, let me know.  You will see by my letter to Dr. Parsons that ——­ dined here yesterday, under K——­’s auspices.  He invited himself for three days,—­luckily I have Mr. Pearson to take care of him,—­and still more luckily I told him frankly yesterday that three days would be too much, for I had nearly died last night of fatigue and exhaustion and their consequences.  To-night I shall leave all to my charming friend.  There is nobody like John Ruskin for refinement and eloquence.  You will be glad to hear that he has asked me for a letter to dear Mr. Bennoch to help him in his schools of Art,—­I mean with advice.  This will, I hope, bring our dear friend out of the set he is in, and into that where I wish to see him, for John Ruskin must always fill the very highest position.  God bless you all, dear friends!

    Ever most affectionately yours, M.R.M.

    Love to all my friends.

You have given me a new motive for clinging to life by coming to England in April.  Till this pull-back yesterday, I was better, although still afraid of being lifted into bed, and with small hope of getting alive through the winter.  God bless you!

    October 18, 1854.

My Very Dear Friend:  Another copy of dear Dr. Parsons’s book has arrived, with a charming, most charming letter from him, and a copy of your edition of “Atherton.”  It is very nicely got up indeed, the portrait the best of any engraving that has been made of me, at least, any recent engraving.  May I have a few copies of that engraving when you come to England?  And if I should be gone, will you let poor K——­ have one?  The only thing I lament in the American “Atherton” is that a passage that I wrote to add to that edition has been omitted.  It was to the purport of my having a peculiar pleasure in the prospect of that reprint, because few things could be so gratifying to me as to find my poor name conjoined with those of the great and liberal publishers, for one of whom I entertain so much respect and esteem, and for the other so true and so lively an affection.  The little sentence was better turned much, but that was the meaning.  No doubt it was in one of my many missing letters.  I even think I sent it twice,—­I should greatly have liked that little paragraph to be there.  May I ask you to give the enclosed to dear Dr. Parsons?  There are noble lines in his book, which gains much by being known.  Dear John Ruskin was here when it arrived, and much pleased with it on turning over the leaves, and he is the most fastidious of men.  I must give him the copy.  His praise is indeed worth having.  I am as when I wrote last.  God bless you, beloved friend.

    Ever yours, M.R.M.