The month has been a dull month: politics, and all that, have been as stupid as the weather. The trees and bushes have come out, to be sure; but only, as it would seem, from a matter of habit--because it’s May by the almanac. However, the Duke of Newcastle has very kindly tried to give us a fillip, as I’ve heard somebody say in some play or the other, “Orson is endowed with reason!” We’ve had two letters from Clumber! You must know that in the British Museum there are two or three mummies of Egyptian kings, they say, who lived I don’t know how many thousand years ago. Now just suppose, grandmother, that one of these mummies--with his brains out, be it remembered--should have suddenly got up, and written a letter or two to Mehemet Ali and his Egyptians, thinking ’em the self-same Egyptians that used to worship crocodiles and ibises, and make gods of the leeks and onions that grew in their gardens,--suppose the British Museum mummy had done this--well, the thing would have done no more than the political mummy of Clumber; would have made just the same mistake as his well-meaning Grace the Duke of Newcastle. “Forget all you’ve been learning for the last thirty years, at least; give up the wickedness of steam, forego the iniquity of railroads, be content with sailing-smacks and stagecoaches, repeal the Reform Bill, repeal Catholic Emancipation--in a word, wipe everything from your minds, gathered there since the good old times when George the Third was King!--come out again in the pig-tails and shoe-buckles of that blissful reign--and I, Duke of Newcastle, am ready to march with you! I am prepared, at every risk, to be hero of the back-step!” As yet, I have heard of nobody who has joined the Duke’s standard; but if recruits should come in, I’ll let you know.