Let me hear from you one Day. I would send you my MS. Book of Morton's Letters: but I scarce know if the Post would carry it to you; though not so very big: and I am still less sure that you would ever return it to me. And what odds if you didn't? It might as well die in your Possession as in mine. In answer to my yearly Letter to Alfred and Co. I heard (from Mrs.) that they were about to leave Freshwater, frightened away by Hero-worshippers, etc., and were going to a Solitude called Greyshott Hall, Haslemere; which, I am told, is in Hants. Whether they go to settle there I don't know. Lucretius' Death is thought to be too free-spoken for Publication, I believe; not so much in a religious, as an amatory, point of View. I should believe Lucretius more likely to have expedited his Departure because of Weariness of Life and Despair of the System, than because of any Love-philtre. I wrote also my yearly Letter to Carlyle, begging my compliments to his Wife: who, he replies, died, in a very tragical way, last April. I have since heard that the Papers reported all the Circumstances. So, if one lives so much out of the World as I do, it seems better to give up that Ghost altogether. Old Spedding has written a Pamphlet about 'Authors and Publishers'; showing up, or striving to show up, the Publishers' system. He adduces his own Edition of Bacon as a sample of their mismanagement, in respect of too bulky Volumes, etc. But, as he says, Macaulay and Alison are still bulkier; yet they sell. The truth is that a solemnly-inaugurated new Edition of all Bacon was not wanted. The Philosophy is surely superseded; not a Wilderness of Speddings can give men a new interest in the Politics and Letters. The Essays will no doubt always be in request, like Shakespeare. But I am perhaps not a proper Judge of these high matters. How should I? who have just, to my great sorrow, finished 'The Woman in White' for the third time, once every last three Winters. I wish Sir Percival Clyde's Death were a little less of the minor Theatre sort; then I would swallow all the rest as a wonderful Caricature, better than so many a sober Portrait. I really think of having a Herring-lugger I am building named 'Marian Halcombe,' the brave Girl in the Story. Yes, a Herring-lugger; which is to pay for the money she costs unless she goes to the Bottom: and which meanwhile amuses me to consult about with my Sea-folks. I go to Lowestoft now and then, by way of salutary Change: and there smoke a Pipe every night with a delightful Chap, who is to be Captain. I have been, up to this time, better than for the last two winters: but feel a Worm in my head now and then, for all that. You will say, only a Maggot. Well; we shall see. When I go to Lowestoft, I take Montaigne with me; very comfortable Company. One of his Consolations for _The Stone_ is, that it makes one less unwilling to part with Life. Oh, you think that it didn't