DEAR MRS. FORTH,—Saturday is a half-holiday at the Works, and I propose to come up and see whether our boat cannot bump Balliol. How extraordinary it is that people should neglect, on Sundays, the favourite promenade of the Short-faced Humourist. I shall be there: the old place.—Believe me, yours ever, D. RIVERS. * * * * * _From Mrs. Casaubon to William Ladislaw_, _Esq._, _Stratford-on-Avon_. DEAR FRIEND,—Your kind letter from Stratford is indeed interesting. Ah, when shall I have an opportunity of seeing these, and so many other interesting places! But in a world where duty is _so much_, and so _always_ with us, why should we regret the voids in our experience which, after all, life is filling in the experience of others? The work is advancing, and Mr. Casaubon hopes that the first chapter of the “Key to All Mythologies” will be fairly copied and completed by the end of autumn. Mr. Casaubon is going to Cambridge on Saturday to hear Professor Tösch lecture on the Pittites and some other party, I really forget which; {130} but it is not often that he takes so much interest in mere _modern_ history. How curious it sometimes is to think that the great spirit of humanity and of the world, as you say, keeps working its way—ah, to what wonderful goal—by means of these obscure difficult politics: almost unworthy instruments, one is tempted to think. That was a true line you quoted lately from the ‘Vita Nuova.’ We have no books of poetry here, except a Lithuanian translation of the Rig Veda. How delightful it must be to read Dante with a sympathetic fellow-student, one who has also loved—and _renounced_!—Yours very sincerely, DOROTHEA CASAUBON. P.S.—I do not expect Mr. Casaubon back from Cambridge before Monday afternoon. * * * * * _From William Ladislaw_, _Esq._, _to the Hon. Secretary of the Literary and Philosophical Mechanics’ Institute_, _Middlemarch_. MY DEAR SIR,—I find that I can be in your neighbourhood on Saturday, and will gladly accept your invitation to lecture at your Institute on the Immutability of Morals.—Faithfully yours, W. LADISLAW. * * * * * _From William Ladislaw_, _Esq._, _to Mrs. Casaubon_. DEAR MRS. CASAUBON,—Only a line to say that I am to lecture at the Mechanics’ Institute on Saturday. I can scarcely hope that, as Mr. Casaubon is away, you will be able to attend my poor performance, but on Sunday I may have, I hope, the pleasure of waiting on you in the afternoon?—Very sincerely yours, W. LADISLAW. P.S.—I shall bring the ‘Vita Nuova’—it is not so difficult as the ‘Paradiso’—and I shall be happy to help you with a few of the earlier sonnets.