HOME LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE. 341 



4 Winton Road, Dublin, July 5th, 1861. 



My dear Mrs. Gatty, 



Having written to you yesterday I am not going to write 

 a letter to-day, but merely send a scrap to say that I got the 

 " Monthly Packet " last evening after dusk, and this morning I 

 read the " Bit of Green." Very pleasant it was and very touch- 

 ing too. I fairly trembled all over, my thoughts running so 

 readily in the channel that " Aunt Judy " had scooped out for 

 them. It really is a very well-conceived and executed little 

 tale, and a good promise for those that are to come, showing both 

 depth and feeling, and power of picturing scenes — the boy 

 coming to his temper in the open air and all. She calls it the 

 "fresh " air, an epithet that I thought hardly quite descriptive 

 of the air of back streets and slums like Primrose Place (a 

 capital name), though fresh in 'one sense it might be, meaning 

 " cool." Poor Ben, too, with his armful of flowers and new hay, 

 very, very good. It is very pretty and very clever, but don't 

 tell her so. You may however so far butter her up, as to say that 

 her Irish friends say u she's her mother's daughter," or as Gold- 

 smith would phrase it, " What was good was spontaneous, her 

 faults were her own." So now r farewell. I did not mean to 

 write any letter to-day, having writ four yesterday and found 

 it quite enough for one sitting. I feel a little stronger, but 

 must husband my strength so as to get to the country. The 

 poor " Phyc. Australica " is stopped for the present, and I don't 

 know but what it may end with vol. iv., instead of vol. v., as at first 

 intended. My sight is not as good as formerly, and I have to 

 use a glass when drawing on the stone, though not at other times. 

 Poor old gentleman ! This is a figure of my left foot just now ! ! ! 

 What do you think ? Chacun a son gout ! 



Yours prosily, 



W. H. H. 



Of the time spent at Miltown he writes as follows to Miss 

 Harvey, New York : — 



Miltown Malbay, September 5th, 1861. 



I am very much better than I was before my illness. We 



have been here for a month and mean to stay September also, 



which is generally the pleasantest season on our western coast. 



Our amusements would be thought monotonous by you, but 



