Winter in the Riviera. 349 



will want. It will certainly alleviate your monotony, if 

 that is the main thing. I will try not to bore you with the 

 matters that are occupying my own mind, and which I 

 shall hope to forward somewhat by this break and cutting 

 loose from other things. There is a good deal of such 

 talk over here as Bob Lowe has given utterance to in the last 

 Contemporary about sociology, and it must be met. More- 

 over, it is the coming subject, and an important one to 

 prepare for. I have not much more work in me, but I 

 would like to direct the remnant that way, and shall want 

 to ask you a lot of questions. Nothing but the desire to 

 be in some way useful to yourself in promoting your work, 

 and at the same time of helping myself in the way proposed, 

 would induce me to encounter another winter passage 

 across the Atlantic. But I will be ready when I hear from 

 you. 



NEW YORK, December 3, 187 8. 



MY DEAR SPENCER : I got your peremptory dispatch 

 on Friday, and immediately set about making arrangements 

 to comply with it. No ship at all encouraging for this sea- 

 son was going immediately, and the best I could do was to 

 take passage in the Germanic for Saturday next (December 

 7th), which I hinted to you in a telegram yesterday. 



The death of Mr. Lewes is announced ; was it not unex- 

 pected ? I know he has not been in very good health, but 

 I supposed he had learned to take care of himself, and 

 being not old, I have been accustomed to think that he 

 would be good for another decade. 



In her own low condition of health, the loss of her hus- 

 band must be very severely felt by Mrs. Lewes. 



STEAMSHIP GERMANIC, December 16, 1878. 



DEAR BROTHER : . . . Near Liverpool nobody knows 

 how near supposed to be about five miles off, at anchor in 

 a dense fog. Should have landed at seven o'clock. The 

 sun shines brightly, and I suppose the fog is perhaps thirty 



