TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Saturday, April 14th, 1855._ MY DEAR FORSTER, I cannot express to you how very much delighted I am with the "Steele." I think it incomparably the best of the series. The pleasanter humanity of the subject may commend it more to one's liking, but that again requires a delicate handling, which you have given to it in a most charming manner. It is surely not possible to approach a man with a finer sympathy, and the assertion of the claims of literature throughout is of the noblest and most gallant kind. I don't agree with you about the serious papers in _The Spectator_, which I think (whether they be Steele's or Addison's) are generally as indifferent as the humour of _The Spectator_ is delightful. And I have always had a notion that Prue understood her husband very well, and held him in consequence, when a fonder woman with less show of caprice must have let him go. But these are points of opinion. The paper is masterly, and all I have got to say is, that if ---- had a grain of the honest sentiment with which it overflows, he never would or could have made so great a mistake. Ever affectionately. [Sidenote: Mr. Mark Lemon.] TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Thursday, April 26th, 1855._ ON THE DEATH OF AN INFANT. MY DEAR MARK, I will call for you at two, and go with you to Highgate, by all means. Leech and I called on Tuesday evening and left our loves. I have not written to you since, because I thought it best to leave you quiet for a day. I have no need to tell you, my dear fellow, that my thoughts have been constantly with you, and that I have not forgotten (and never shall forget) who sat up with me one night when a little place in my house was left empty. It is hard to lose any child, but there are many blessed sources of consolation in the loss of a baby. There is a beautiful thought in Fielding's "Journey from this World to the Next," where the baby he had lost many years before was found by him all radiant and happy, building him a bower in the Elysian Fields where they were to live together when he came. Ever affectionately yours. P.S.--Our kindest loves to Mrs. Lemon. [Sidenote: Mr. Clarkson Stanfield, R.A.] TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Sunday, May 20th, 1855._ MY DEAR STANNY, I have a little lark in contemplation, if you will help it to fly.