‘When I come home, I mean to rat-and-be-married: _i.e._, if I can hook in anyone to be such a fool. The great difference between a wife and a friend is that a wife cannot cut one, and a friend can. It is a bad thing περισσὰ φρονεῖν, so I shall certainly rat.[203] I see that … [Henry Wilberforce][204] has … Old [Ryder’s] apostacy I knew of before. [Isaac][205] cannot hold out long, if he is not fallen already. So why should you and I be wiser than our neighbours?[206] Some months ago, before I had repented of my radicalism, I was devising a scheme for you, which was knocked on the head by my finding from _The British Magazine_ that you were ordained by the Bishop of Oxford.[207] For my part, I would rather have had my orders from a Scotch Bishop, and I thought of suggesting the same to you. The stream is purer, and, besides, it would have left one free from some embarrassing engagements.[208] By the by, all I know about any of you is through _The British Magazine_…. I am very thirsty for more authentic information. Not that I would have you write to me after the receipt of this letter, though; for by that time I shall most likely be on my way back. I shall start as early as I can in April, and I really begin now to think that I shall come back cured. At least people tell me that since the weather has become cooler I have altered for the better in appearance rapidly, and certainly I have in strength…. For the last three weeks, I have had a horse, which I have been cool enough to smug from the Bishop’s stables in his absence;[209] and this, I think, has been of use to me.’ The letter to Newman, as usual, goes deeper, and touches sadly on more intimate matters. ‘… There was a passage in a letter I have just received from my father that made me feel so infinitely dismal, that I must write to you about it. He says you have written to him to learn something about me, and to ask what to do with my money. It really made me feel as if I was dead, and you were sweeping up my remains; and, by the by, if I was dead, why should I be cut off from the privilege of helping on the Good Cause? I don’t know what money I left: little enough I suspect; but, whatever it was, I am superstitious enough to think that any good it could do “_in honorem Dei et sacrosanctæ Matris Ecclesiæ_,” would have done something too “_in salutem animæ meæ_.”