Wrote to
Gush
Ponsford
J. Hornby &
R. Fowler.

Greek till 8. ― Very wonderfully lovely day all through, & now are beginning those beautiful evening Western skies, which often go on till Xmas.

At 12 W. & E. Newsom came, & I put out my 2 pictures carefully for them; & they really were pleased. ― Then I showed them a few of the Palestine drawings which he entered into more than she: but how difficult must it be to do that! Even I believe that after a few years, if I lived here, I should forget all I have seen, save dimly generally, or brightly by fits. We are as we are. Bother! How little way of improvement one makes! ― “Is it worth the keeping?” ― so hard a trial? ―

Yes. Better strive on.

Concerning painting, I worked at the big Petra to day. At sunset, walked by the sea ― low tide ― & Martello towers ― & to the post. Then dined on everlasting cold beef & novel oysters. ― Read Channing.1

Letter from R. Martineau: very nice. Daddy & he return here next week.

[Transcribed by Marco Graziosi from Houghton Library, Harvard University, MS Eng. 797.3.]

  1. Perhaps the Transcendentalist poet William Ellery Channing (1818-1901), but more probably his omonymous uncle, the foremost Unitarian preacher in the United States in the early nineteenth century (1780-1842), whose works had had several editions in the first half of the century. [↩]