What with the boxing-gloves and one thing and another, he had been “getting English again by degrees.”  In a drawing he shows us how he is going through the process arm-in-arm with his old friend, Tom Armstrong, now the Art-Director of that very English institution, the South Kensington Museum.  Armstrong and T.R.  Lamont, the man who to this day bears such a striking resemblance to our friend the Laird, had presented du Maurier with a complete edition of Edgar Allan Poe’s works.  His appreciation of that author is expressed in a letter which he addressed to Armstrong, and it needs not much reading between the lines to gather what was the literary diet best suited to his taste.  It is amusing, too, to notice the little shadows cast here and there by coming events.

(Billy Barlow was, I really don’t know why, for the time being, synonymous with George du Maurier.)

“Gulielmus Barlow, Thomasino Armstrong,
Whom we hope is ‘gaillardement’ getting along
And salubrious, ave!

                     You’ll wonder, I ween,
  At Barlow’s turning topsy-tur—­poet I mean. 
  I take odds you’ll exclaim, ’twixt a grunt and a stare,
  ‘Gottferdummi’ the beggar’s gone mad, I declare,
  And his wits must have followed his ’peeper’—­not so;
  He will give you the wherefore, will William Barlow—­
  Viz:  he’s so seedy and blue, he’s so deucedly triste,
  He’s so d——­d out of sorts, he’s so d——­d out of tune,
  That for mere consolation he cannot resist
  The temptation of holding with Tommy commune. 
  Then that he should be bothered alone, isn’t fair,
  So he’ll just bother you a bit, pour se distraire,
  This will partly account for the milk—­then the fact is
  That some heavy swell says that it’s deuced good practice,
  And then it’s a natural consequence, too,
  Of the classical culture he’s just been put through. 
  I’ll explain:  T’other day the maternal did say,
  ’You are sadly deficient in reading, Bill; nay
  Do not wrinkle your forehead and turn up your nose
  (That elegant feature of William Barlow’s!)
  You’ve read Thackeray, Dickens, I know; but it’s fit
  You should study the classical authors a bit. 
  Heaven knows when your sight will be valid again,
  You may throw down the pencil and take up the pen,
  And you cannot have too many strings to your bow.’ 
  —­’A-a-amen!’ says young William to Mrs. Barlow.

  So we’re treated (our feelings we needn’t define)
  To a beastly slow book called the ‘Fall and Decline’
  By a fellow called Gibbon, be d——­d to him; then
  Comes the ‘Esprit des lois et des moeurs,’ from the pen
  Of a chap hight Voltaire—­un pedant—­qui je crois
  Ne se fichait pas mal et des moeurs et des lois. 
  After which just to vary the pleasures, Rousseau
  By Emile—­no:  Emile by Rousseau?  Gad!  I know
  That which ever it be it’s infernally