Autograph letter signed : Scarborough, to H.G. Hewlett, 1870 September 19.

Writes of his recent depression owing to "one shock after another"; his enjoyment of Scarborough as a retreat from London; the horror of the "tremendous events abroad" [a reference to the events of the Franco-Prussian War] which "have not driven out my dear friend's image" (presumably a reference to the recent death of his friend Charles Dickens); noting that he had planned on visiting both France and Germany that season ("now I feel, as if I never wished to see either country again-since the mourning & desolation will hardly pass in my life time"); contemplating a trip to Lisbon.