Your words of affection in the note you sent me are very dear to my remembrance. I like not only to be loved, but also to be told that I am loved. I am not sure that you are of the same mind. But the realm of silence is large enough beyond the grave. This is the world of light and speech, and I shall take leave to tell you that you are very dear.
[Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Peter Taylor, 14th May, 1875.]
You are right--there is no time, but only the sense of not having time; especially when, instead of filling the days with useful exertion, as you do, one wastes them in being ill, as I have been doing of late. However, I am better now, and will not grumble. Thanks for all the dear words in your letter. Be sure I treasure the memory of your faithful friendship, which goes back--you know how far.
[Sidenote: Letter to Frederic Harrison, 1st June, 1875.]
If you could, some day this week or the beginning of next, allow me half an hour's quiet _tête-à-tête_, I should be very much obliged by such a kindness.
The trivial questions I want to put could hardly be shapen in a letter so as to govern an answer that would satisfy my need. And I trust that the interview will hardly be more troublesome to you than writing.
I hope, when you learn the pettiness of my difficulties, you will not be indignant, like a great doctor called in to the favorite cat.
[Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Peter Taylor, 9th Aug. 1875, from Rickmansworth.]
We admire our bit of Hertfordshire greatly; but I should be glad of more breezy common land and far-reaching outlooks. For fertility, wealth of grand trees, parks, mansions, and charming bits of stream and canal, our neighborhood can hardly be excelled. And our house is a good old red-brick Georgian place, with a nice bit of garden and meadow and river at the back. Perhaps we are too much in the valley, and have too large a share of mist, which often lies white on our meadows in the early evening. But who has not had too much moisture in this calamitously wet, cold summer?
Mr. Lewes is very busy, but not in zoologizing. We reserve that for October, when we mean to go to the coast for a few weeks. It is a long while since I walked on broad sands and watched the receding tide; and I look forward agreeably to a renewal of that old pleasure.