P.S.--I thought the "Grandmother" quite as fine. How can you at 50
be doing things as well as at 35?
October 16th.--(I should think six weeks after the writing of the
above.)
The rhapsody of gratitude was never sent, and for a peculiar reason:
just about the time of writing I came to an arrangement with Smith &
Elder to edit their new magazine, and to have a contribution from T.
was the publishers' and editor's highest ambition. But to ask a man
for a favour, and to praise and bow down before him in the same page,
seemed to be so like hypocrisy, that I held my hand, and left this
note in my desk, where it has been lying during a little French-
Italian-Swiss tour which my girls and their papa have been making.
Meanwhile S. E. & Co. have been making their own proposals to you,
and you have replied not favourably, I am sorry to hear; but now
there is no reason why you should not have my homages, and I am just
as thankful for the Idylls, and love and admire them just as much, as
I did two months ago when I began to write in that ardour of claret
and gratitude. If you can't write for us you can't. If you can by
chance some day, and help an old friend, how pleased and happy I
shall be! This however must be left to fate and your convenience: I
don't intend to give up hope, but accept the good fortune if it
comes. I see one, two, three quarterlies advertised to-day, as all
bringing laurels to laureatus.
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