decorous vices together.  She looks at you with an immense, marvellous gravity, before she replies to you—­enveloping you in a velvet light.  This, is fact, not fine stuff, my dear fellow.  The light of her eyes does absolutely cling about you.  Adieu!  You are a great master, and know exactly when to make your bow and retire.  A little more, and you would have spoilt her.  Now she is perfect.”

[Wilfrid to Tracy Runningbrook:]

“I have just come across a review of your last book, and send it, thinking you may wish to see it.  I have put a query to one of the passages, which I think misquoted:  and there will be no necessity to call your attention to the critic’s English.  You can afford to laugh at it, but I confess it puts your friends in a rage.  Here are a set of fellows who arm themselves with whips and stand in the public thoroughfare to make any man of real genius run the gauntlet down their ranks till he comes out flayed at the other extremity!  What constitutes their right to be there?—­By the way, I met Sir Purcell Barrett (the fellow who was at Hillford), and he would like to write an article on you that should act as a sort of rejoinder.  Yon won’t mind, of course—­it’s bread to him, poor devil!  I doubt whether I shall see you when you comeback, so write a jolly lot of letters.  Colonel Pierson, of the Austrian army, my uncle (did you meet him at Brookfield?), advises me to sell out immediately.  He is getting me an Imperial commission—­cavalry.  I shall give up the English service.  And if they want my medal, they can have it, and I’ll begin again.  I’m sick of everything except a cigar and a good volume of poems.  Here’s to light one, and now for the other!

          “‘Large eyes lit up by some imperial sin,’” etc. 
          (Ten lines from Tracy’s book are here copied neatly.)

[Tracy Runningbrook to Wilfrid:]

“Why the deuce do you write me such infernal trash about the opinions of a villanous dog who can’t even en a decent sentence?  I’ve been damning you for a white-livered Austrian up and down the house.  Let the fellow bark till he froths at the mouth, and scatters the virus of the beast among his filthy friends.  I am mad-dog proof.  The lines you quote were written in an awful hurry, coming up in the train from Richford one morning.  You have hit upon my worst with commendable sagacity.  If it will put money in Barren’s pocket, let him write.  I should prefer to have nothing said.  The chances are all in favour of his writing like a fool.  If you’re going to be an Austrian, we may have a chance of shooting one another some day, so here’s my hand before you go and sell your soul; and anything I can do in the meantime—­command me.”

[Georgiana Ford to Wilfrid:]