Corfu. Feb. 1. 1858.

I shall send a little letter to-day, as the time draws nearer for going eastward, so that if possible I may get still one line from you before I start.

I cannot tell you much of anything at present, & {84} besides that I am full of little fussy letters & botherings, I am so cold, as to be half-dead. No such winter has ever been known here, & last night Lushington who dined here was glad, as was I, to wrap ourselves in Railway rugs as we sat on each side of the fire.

While I write the post comes, & one letter contains a bit I will transcribe, as I know it will please you as it does me. “When Lady Waldegrave came to ——, I met her in a spirit of prejudice & ignorance, — but I recovered from that while she staid & made herself known. She certainly is one of the most remarkable characters of the day, which few give her credit for being, at least none who know her superficially.”
Well I wish I were at Redhouse and you reading me the diary in the small Jam studio: — or walking up & down the long walk with or without Chi, the perspective struggling milkly enthusiastic calves afar off — the Million1 remotely seen in the far background. I shall write to you from Jerusalem. Goodbye my dear 40scue. Remember if I die you are to choose a book from my books: — B. Husey-Hunt, & W. Holman Hunt are my executors.”2 {85}

  1. Mrs. Ruxton’s companion, so called because she was “one in a million.” [↩]
  2. The well-known artist and another intimate friend of Lear’s. Amusing remembrances of his first meeting with Lear are told in Mr. Holman Hunt’s Memoires. [↩]