Do not you forget (as you will) to tell Mr. Millais one day of the pretty Subject I told you; little Keats standing sentry before his sick Mother's Door with a drawn sword; in his Shirt it might be, with some Rembrandtish Light and Shade. The Story is to be found at the beginning of Lord Houghton's Life. Also, for any Painter you know of what they call the 'Genre' School: Sevigne and the 'de Villars' looking through the keyhole at Mignard painting Madame de Fontevrauld (Rochechouart) while the Abbe Tetu talks to her (Letter of Sept. 6, 1675). It might be done in two compartments, with the wall slipt between, so as to show both Parties, as one has seen on the Stage. _To C. E. Norton_. WOODBRIDGE. _Nov._ 3, 1880. MY DEAR NORTON, . . . With all your knowledge, and all the use you can make of it, I wonder that you can think twice of such things as I can offer you in return for what you send me: but I take you at your word, and shall perhaps send you the last half of OEdipus, if I can prepare him for the Printer; a rather hard business to me now, when turned of seventy, and reminded by some intimations about the Heart that I am not likely to exceed the time which those of my Family have stopped going at. But this is no great Regret to me. I have sent you a better Book than any I can send you of my own: or of any one else's in the way of Verse, I think: the Sonnets of Alfred Tennyson's Brother Charles. Two thirds of them I do not care for: but there is scarce one without some fine thought or expression: some of them quite beautiful to me: all pure, true, and original. I think you in America may like these leaves from the Life of a quiet Lincolnshire Parson. . . . We have had the Leaves green unusually late this year, I think: but so I have thought often before, I am told. The last few nights have brought Frost, however: and changed the countenance of all. A Blackbird (have you him as the 'ousel'?) whom I kept alive, I think, through last hard winter by a saucer of Bread and Milk, has come to look for it again. _To Miss Anna Biddell_. _Nov._ 30, 1880.