380 MY LIFE [Chap. 



" I now write you a letter, I hope for the last time, for I 

 trust our future letters may be viva voce, as an Irishman 

 would say, while our epistolary correspondence will be con- 

 fined to notes. I really do now think and believe that I am 

 coming home, and as I am quite uncertain when I may be 

 able to send you this letter, I may possibly arrive not very 

 long after it. Some fine morning I expect to walk into 79, 

 Pall Mall, and shall, I suppose, find things just the same as 

 if I had walked out yesterday and come in to-morrow ! 

 There will you be seated on the same chair, at the same 

 table, surrounded by the same account books, and writing 

 upon paper of the same size and colour as when I last beheld 

 you. I shall find your inkstand, pens, and pencils in the 

 same places, and in the same beautiful order, which my 

 idiosyncrasy compels me to admire, but forbids me to imitate. 

 (Could you see the table at which I am now writing, your 

 hair would stand on end at the reckless confusion it ex- 

 hibits !) I suppose you have now added a few more secretary- 

 ships to your former multifarious duties. I suppose that you 

 still walk every morning from Kensington and back in the 

 evening, and that things at the archdeacon's go on precisely 

 and identically as they did eight years ago. 1 I feel almost 

 inclined to parody the words of Cicero, and to ask indig- 

 nantly, 'How long, O Georgius, will you thus abuse our 

 patience ? How long will this sublime indifference last ? ' 

 But I fear the stern despot, habit, has too strongly riveted 

 your chains, and as, after many years of torture the Indian 

 fanatic can at last sleep only on his bed of spikes, so perhaps 

 now you would hardly care to change that daily routine, 

 even if the opportunity were thrust upon you. Excuse me, 

 my dear George, if I express myself too strongly on this 

 subject, which is truly no business of mine, but I cannot see, 

 without regret, my earliest friend devote himself so entirely, 

 mind and body, to the service of others. 



" I am here in one of the places unknown to the Royal 

 Geographical Society, situated in the very centre of East 



1 Mr. Silk was private secretary and reader to the then Archdeacon Sinclair, 

 Vicar of Kensington. 



