"I ought to be in bed, but somehow you are always first in my thoughts and last, and I prefer five minutes of gossiping with you.... How, indeed, could it be otherwise than that you should be first and last in my thoughts, who for so many years have _occupied all_ my thoughts. For fifteen years at least it has been my pleasure to watch over you, to direct and to advise. Now, direct and personal interference has ceased.... It is natural, perhaps, that I should take a greater interest than other fathers, for I have a greater interest at stake. I have _but one _son. That son, too, I have brought up differently from others, and if he be not better than others, it will be urged against me, not as a misfortune, but as a shame. From the first hour I never taught you to believe what I did not myself believe. I have been a thousand times censured for it, but I had that confidence in truth that I dared put my faith in it and in you. And you will not fail me. I am sure you will return home to do me honour, and to make me respect you, as I do, and ever shall, love you." It was a singular letter for a man of thirty-seven to write--singular in its self-effacement before the rising generation, singular, too, in the intensity of its forecast. Yet, after all, a measure of disappointment was to be his return for that first venture. The son to whom so great a cargo of hopes had been committed was a vigorous lad, backed when he was fifteen 'to swim or shoot or throw against any boy of his age in England,' and he developed these and kindred energies, accepting culture only in so far as it ministered to his fine natural faculty for enjoyment. He acquired a knowledge of Italian and of operatic music at Florence; but when afterwards at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, he was, to his father's despair, very idle, and during his early years in London 'was principally known to his friends for never missing a night at the Opera.'