LETTER VII. PAGE 266 More about compulsory education LETTER VIII. Under a playful signature, my friend Leo, of the Daily Telegraph, advocates an important Liberal measure, and, in so doing, gives news of Arminius LETTER IX. Arminius, starting for the Continent to take part in the War between France and Prussia, addresses a disrespectful farewell to our people and institutions LETTER X. Arminius, writing from the German camp before Paris, comments, in his old unappreciative spirit, on the attitude of our beloved country in the Black Sea question 274 283 292 DEDICATORY LETTER. GRUB STREET, Candlemas Day, 1871. MY DEAR LEO,— SHALL I ever forget the evening, at the end of last November, when your feeling letter describing the death of our friend first met my eyes? I was alone in my garret; it was just dark; my landlady opened the door and threw a paper on the table. Selfish creatures that we are! my first thought was: It is a communication from the Literary Fund! The straits to which I am reduced by my long warfare with the Philistines, have at last, I said to myself, become known; they have excited sympathy; this is no doubt a letter from Mr. Octavian Blewitt, enclosing half-a-crown, the promise of my dinner at Christmas, and the kind wishes of Lord Stanhope for my better success in authorship. Hastily I lighted my lamp, and saw the Pall Mall Gazette. You know, Leo, how, after vainly knocking at the door of the Daily Telegraph, I carried to Northumberland Street my records of the conversations of Arminius. I love to think that the success of the "Workhouse Casual" had disposed the Editor's heart to be friendly towards Pariahs; my communication was affably accepted, and from that day to this the Pall Mall Gazette, whenever there is any mention in it of Arminius, reaches me in Grub Street gratis. I took the paper, I opened it; your playful signature caught my eye. I read your letter through to the end, and then . . . Suffer me, Leo, to draw a veil over those first days of grief. In the tumult of feeling plans were then formed to which I have not energy to give effect. I nourished the design of laying before the public a complete account of Arminius von Thunder-tenTronckh, and of the group which was gathered round him. The history of his family has been written by the famous Voltaire in his Candide; but I doubt whether an honest man can in conscience send the British public to even the historical works of that dangerous author. Yet a singular fortune brought together in our set the descendants of a number of the personages of Candide. Von Thunder-ten-Tronckh is, perhaps, sufficiently made known by the following letters; his curious delusion about the living representative of Pangloss is also fully noticed there. But not a glimpse, alas, do these records give of our poor friend Martin (de Mabille), who has just been shut up in Paris eating rats, the cynical descendant of that great foe of Pangloss's optimism, the Martin of Candide. Hardly a glimpse is given of the Marquis Pompeo Pococurante, little Pompey with the soft eyes and dark hair, whose acquaintance you made at Turin under the portiques du Pô, and whom you brought to London in the hope of curing, by the spectacle of the |