[About Birrell.] ... I read Birrell's essay on Newman which was a surprise and delight to me - he is a dear fellow, Birrell, and I love him for that lecture or essay. And he is nice about Borrow and he is generous and understanding about them all. I haven't read the essay on Cowper yet - perhaps I never shall, the name choked me off - but Birrell is wise and kind and never to the from with himself, and a smile ready at the right place. I feel a constant irrepressible hope in France, and I think the doom of hideousness is proclaimed already - and Zola might write so well about painting and not know one picture from another, like Swinburne who has said the best words about music that ever were. This is rather sad talk and sounds as if I had an impossible ideal, and I have, and a bit of it shall come. I do love the French - they try the experiments for the smug world to profit by - and I should like a splendid school of painting yet to come out of France. ... Most of them, even the big ones, are quite poor - and the sight of a poor gentleman makes me feel the world is worth redeeming and can be redeemed. ... Some day I will show you what I think they have really added to the world, and it is a good deal. ...