POSTSCRIPT.

25th May (early morning).—Reuter’s final telegram, in the Echo of last night, being “The Louvre and the Tuileries are in flames, the Federals having set fire to them with petroleum,” it is interesting to observe how, in fulfilment of the Mechanical Glories of our age, its ingenious Gomorrah manufactures, and supplies to demand, her own brimstone; achieving also a quite scientific, instead of miraculous, descent of it from Heaven; and ascent of it, where required, without any need of cleaving or quaking of earth, except in a superficially ‘vibratory’ manner.

Nor can it be less encouraging to you to see how, with a sufficiently curative quantity of Liberty, you may defend yourselves against all danger of over-production, especially in art; but, in case you should ever wish to re-‘produce’ any of the combustibles (as oil, or canvas) used in these Parisian Economies, you will do well to inquire of the author of the “Essay on Liberty” whether he considers oil of linseed, or petroleum, as best fulfilling his definition, “utilities fixed and embodied in material objects.”

CHARITY.

CHARITY.

Drawn thus by Giotto in the Chapel of the Arena at Padua.

1 I think it best to publish this letter as it was prepared for press on the morning of the 25th of last month, at Abingdon, before the papers of that day had reached me. You may misinterpret its tone, and think it is written without feeling; but I will endeavour to give you, in my next letter, a brief statement of the meaning, to the French and to all other nations, of this war, and its results: in the meantime, trust me, there is probably no other man living to whom, in the abstract, and irrespective of loss of family and property, the ruin of Paris is so great a sorrow as it is to me. ↑

2 Of course this was written, and in type, before the late catastrophe in Paris; and the one at Dunkirk is, I suppose, long since forgotten, much more our own good beginning at—Birmingham—was it? I forget, myself, now. ↑

3 This was at seven in the morning; he had them fighting at half-past nine. ↑

4 Engraved, as also the woodcut in the April number, carefully after Holbein, by my coal-waggon-assisting assistant: but he has missed his mark somewhat, here; the imp’s abortive hands, hooked processes only, like Envy’s, and pterodactylous, are scarcely seen in their clutch of the bellows, and there are other faults. We will do it better for you, afterwards. ↑

FORS CLAVIGERA.