am, however, much reconciled to what at first disappointed me extremely--my not being able to bring him out to this country; for if he should eventually take to the stage, here that is simply in most instances equivalent to taking to the gutter. My daughters are both with me just now, and Fanny desires me to remember her very kindly to you. The incidents of the war which reach the other side of the water no doubt strike you as amazing enough; but anything more grotesque than the daily details in the midst of which we live, you cannot conceive. A young gentleman, a friend of ours who has just returned from his share in the campaign in a three months' volunteer regiment (he has entered the regular army, as a very large proportion of the volunteers did as soon as their three months' amateur service expired), described to us a volunteer corps which happened to be encamped in the neighbourhood of his company. He said they were one of the finest bodies of men he ever saw. Lumberers, that is, wood-fellers from the forests of Maine and New Hampshire, perfectly brave and reckless and daring--perfectly undisciplined too, to the tune of replying to their officers when ordered to turn out on guard, "No, I'll be damned if I do," with the most cheerful good humour. Thereupon the discomfited "superior" simply turns to some one else and says, "Oh, well--you're so and so--go." Good-bye; I shall rejoice to see you again, and be once more at home among people who know how to behave themselves.--Believe me, always yours most sincerely, FANNY KEMBLE. After the Prince Consort's death in 1861 Leighton wrote the following letter to his younger sister, who was in Italy: I have just returned from a fortnight in Bath, where I have at last finished the Johnnies,[22] I believe, and hope you will like them; they are at all events much improved. I am glad for the poor lad that the _corvée_ of settling is over; he was dying to get back to his work. If zeal and enthusiasm can make an artist, he ought to become one. I don't attempt to give you home news, as you are amply supplied with that article by Mamma. Everybody here is in great sorrow for the poor Queen. She bears up under her overwhelming grief with admirable fortitude, and expresses her anxious desire to do _her duty as he_ would have wished it, but she speaks of all earthly happiness as at an end. The tender sympathy manifested by the whole nation is touching, but deserved.