As to anything being lost by its not being in the hands of the people who dine (as you seem to think), I have not the least misgiving on that score. They would say, if it were issued, just what they will say without it. Lord Granville is committed to taking the chair, and will make the best speech he can in it. The pious ---- will cram him with as many distortions of the truth as his stomach may be strong enough to receive. ----, with Bardolphian eloquence, will cool his nose in the modest merits of the institution. ---- will make a neat and appropriate speech on both sides, round the corner and over the way. And all this would be done exactly to the same purpose and in just the same strain, if twenty thousand copies of the pamphlet had been circulated. Ever affectionately. [Sidenote: Rev. James White.] TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Friday, May 22nd, 1857._ MY DEAR WHITE, My emancipation having been effected on Saturday, the ninth of this month, I take some shame to myself for not having sooner answered your note. But the host of things to be done as soon as I was free, and the tremendous number of ingenuities to be wrought out at Gad's Hill, have kept me in a whirl of their own ever since. We purpose going to Gad's Hill for the summer on the 1st of June; as, apart from the master's eye being a necessary ornament to the spot, I clearly see that the workmen yet lingering in the yard must be squeezed out by bodily pressure, or they will never go. How will this suit you and yours? If you will come down, we can take you all in, on your way north; that is to say, we shall have that ample verge and room enough, until about the eighth; when Hans Christian Andersen (who has been "coming" for about three years) will come for a fortnight's stay in England. I shall like you to see the little old-fashioned place. It strikes me as being comfortable. So let me know your little game. And with love to Mrs. White, Lotty, and Clara, Believe me, ever affectionately yours. [Sidenote: Mr. Frank Stone, A.R.A.] OFFICE OF "HOUSEHOLD WORDS," _Monday, June 1st, 1857._ MY DEAR STONE, I know that what I am going to say will not be agreeable; but I rely on the authoress's good sense; and say it, knowing it to be the truth.