I think you have galled the emotions of the egregious rival. I passed Tankerton Wollup on the Embankment meditating on the sea-gulls and the factories beyond, alone with nature who was never given to contemplate the works of nature. It is full time you joined the Primrose League, captured a seat in the Commons, and rubbed elbows with the nobility--when Tankerton Wollup has headache by reason of your greatness. I see, too, in visions, Miss Judith with a coronet a-top her pretty brows. But mark the law--rub elbows only with the old nobility--the new aristocracy is so very exclusive. Have an eye to subtleties; and thy translation is sure. But should the gods burst the casket of their very uttermost honours at your feet, and fill your broad lap with treasure, you will never be greater than you are. Yours, mightily beholden, BARTHOLOMEW DOOME. P.S.--The sting is ever in the tail. Nature herself hath so ordered it. I ought to tell you that this Ponsonby Ffolliott thinks he can paint. Gods of little Egypt, it is all very dreadful--makes the teeth ache--but he is well satisfied. What more can heaven send? But the point of the tail is this: ... He took to the arts, _patronized_ them, but six weeks ago. He had drawn ‘funny pictures’ as somewhat ignoble school-boy at Harrow, it is true; but it was the study of the nude model that finished the business--’twas beauty unadorned, lacking even as to fig-leaf, attracted our recruit. He fell into someone’s studio, a model sitting at the time, and the great idea was bred--within the winking of an eyelid--leaped, hissing hot, from the intellectual furnace. There is already a more than ugly story going about that has to do with this blood ass of Balaam coupled with that pretty little ethereal woman who sat for me a while ago. I suppose one must believe women capable of any enormity in these days. And these youths sin such dirty mean sins--even sin has lost the grand manner. And the tools of his craft! Such an ordering of the Latest Thing! I was present--a silent witness. My poor easel for the making of the mere black-and-white art is well put away in hiding, or had cracked of envy in such splendid company. No expense spared.