Autograph letter signed : London, to William Allingham, [1856] | WorldCat.org (original) (raw)

Summary:Asking him to identify a German print in the British Museum that he previously described to Rossetti; describing the weather: "here is neither a bright day nor a dark day, but a white smutty day -- piebald -- wherein accordingly life seems neither worth keeping nor getting rid of. The thick sky has a thin red sun stuck in the middle of it like the specimen wafer outside a box of them;" asking if he intends to write the next great modern epic and referencing Browning's Aurora Leigh; reporting that Tom Seddon died in Cairo; mentioning that Ruskin wants Rossetti to enter the Old Water-colour Society and noting "This would be a great advantage to the sale of my water colours, but I fear it might chance to bonnet my oil-painting for good. I don't know what to do." With a postscript enclosing (not present) a photograph