Whether the irritation of mind I had to endure pending the discussions of a preposterous clerical body called a Convocation, and whether the weakened hopefulness of mankind which such a dash of the middle ages in the colour and pattern of 1866 engenders, may have anything to do with it, I don't know.
"What a happy man you must be in having a new house to work at.

When it is quite complete, and the roc's egg hung up, I suppose you will get rid of it bodily and turn to at another." [_Absit omen!_ At this very moment, while I transcribe this letter, I _am_ turning to at another.] "_Daily News_ correspondent" [as I then for a short time was], "Novel, and Hospitality! Enough to do indeed! Perhaps the day _might_ be advantageously made longer for such work--or say life." [Ah! if the small matters rehearsed had been all, I could more contentedly have put up with the allowance of four-and-twenty hours.] "And yet I don't know.

Like enough we should all do less if we had time to do more in.
"Layard was with us for a couple of days a little while ago, and brought the last report of you, and of your daughter, who seems to have made a great impression on him.

I wish he had had the keepership of the National Gallery, for I don't think his Government will hold together through many weeks.
"I wonder whether you thought as highly of Gibson's art as the lady did who wrote the verses.

I must say that I did _not_, and that I thought it of a mechanical sort, with no great amount of imagination in it.