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[On headed notepaper for Wallington, Cambo, Northumberland]: - Heard from Mr Bowen that she was planning to come down 'if it was fine to see the torpids'; is glad that she did not as it was so windy they were put off till next Saturday. There are 'no absits this term, at least at the beginning' so they [he and Charlie] could not come on Saturday. Charlie 'seems very well now', though Robert is 'not a very good judge of that sort of thing'; he had a headache last Sunday but Robert thinks he is better now. Has been 'out running twice', and much enjoyed it. Mr Bowen asked him to send the enclosed paper [no longer present] to her and his father: it is about the football, and some of it is 'very good'. Is glad to hear about the election they [the Liberals] have won, and hopes they will win the rest. Adds a postscript saying that he is reading [The Count of] Monte Cristo, 'but not so as to interfere with my work'.

Welcombe, Stratford on Avon. - He and Caroline have recovered from the journey, but he supposes he will remain 'at a lower level than before [his] long illness'. Has never read any Plutarch in Greek: he is one of the great writers 'to whom one pays the hightest of compliments of reading them with reverence in English', as he did for so long with [Dumas's "Count of] Monte Cristo" and "The Three Musketeers". Would like to know what Robert thinks of Plutarch's biography of Alexander; he himself is planning to re-read Lucian's "Alexander Pseudomantis" and "On Salaried Posts in Great Houses"; has just finished the "De morte Peregrini"; expresses his 'distaste' for the "Dialogues of the Dead" and 'something stronger than distaste' for Lucian's many imitators. Caroline 'really fancied the Shelley book', but they both got bored by Dowson last time they read him; [James?] Hogg is 'above, or beside, or somehow sacred from criticism'.