Chapter XXI: Part 21

And so because the sea rages and roars against the coast at St. Leonard's, and appals your eyes and ears there, my dearest Hal, you think we had better not cross the Atlantic now. But the storms on that tremendous ocean are so _local_, so to speak, that vessels steering the same course and within comparatively small distance of each other have often different weather and do not experience the same tempests. Moreover, Mrs. Macready has just been here, who tells me that her husband crossed last year rather earlier than I did, in October, and had a horrible passage; and the last time I came to England we sailed on the 1st of December, and had a long but by no means bad voyage. There is no certainty about it, though, to be sure, strong probability of unfavorable weather at this season of the year....

I told you that I had got off dining at the L----s' to-day by pleading indisposition, which is quite true, for I am very unwell. I shall remain dinnerless at home, which is no great hardship, and one for which I dare say I shall be none the worse. My father talks of going to Brighton this week, and then I shall scatter myself abroad in every direction....

My father leaves town on Wednesday, and as he is to be absent two or three weeks, I suppose he will only return in time to sail.

I have written to Mrs. Grote to say I will come to Burnham on Thursday, and my present plan is to remain there until Monday next, and probably then go to the Hoo. The Grevilles, Charles and Henry, have been here repeatedly; they are both of them now gone out of town. I called to-day on Mrs. O'Sullivan, and there I found Dr. Holland, with whom I had one more laugh upon the subject of his never reaching Lenox after all dear Charles Sumner's efforts to get him there. [Dr. Holland, while in America, had made various unsuccessful attempts to visit the Sedgwick family in Berkshire, winding up with a failure more ludicrous than all the others, under the guidance of his, their, and my friend, Charles Sumner....]

I have had a most affectionate note of welcome from Mrs. Jameson, and am rather in terror of her advent, as I feel considerable awkwardness about her various late passages-at-arms with my sister. Mrs. Macready came to see me this afternoon, and told me that she heard I was about to return forthwith to America....

Now, dear, I think I have really done my duty by you to-day. God bless you. Give my affectionate love to the "good angel" [Miss Wilson]. As for your "roaring sea," I only wish I was in it just where you are (nowhere else, though). I am not well, and very much out of spirits; disgusted, and, I have no doubt, disgusting; but, nevertheless,

Ever yours,
FANNY.

Arnold's Christianity puzzles me a little. He justifies litigation between men and war between nations. Whenever I set about carrying out my own Christianity I shall do neither; for I do not believe either are according to Christ's law.

I called on the Miss Hamiltons to-day, and we talked "some" of you. I have had another most affectionate note from Lizzie Mair, entreating me to go to Edinburgh. But oh! my dear Hal, the money? _Che vita!_

MORTIMER STREET, Thursday, 20th, 1845.
MY DEAREST HARRIET,

There is another thing that makes me pause about coming to Hastings--the time for my departure for America will be drawing very near when I return to town on Monday from Mrs. Grote's, which is the only visit that I shall have it in my power to pay....

Tuesday is the 25th. I must see my brother John again before I go. This will take two days and one night, and my father talks of going down to Liverpool on the 2nd or 3rd, so that I could only run down to Hastings for a few miserable hours, again to renew all the pain of bidding you another farewell....

I left off here to get my breakfast. We have lowered the price and the quality of our tea, in consequence of which, you see, my virtue and courage are also deteriorated [Miss S---- used to say that a cup of good tea was _virtue_ and _courage_ to her], and this is why I feel I had perhaps better not come to Hastings.

Thus far, my dearest Harriet, when your letter of the 19th--yesterday (you see I did look at the date)--was brought to me. It is certainly most miserable to consider what horrible things men contrive to make of the mutual relations which might be so blest. I do not know if I am misled by the position from which I take my observations, but it seems to me that one of the sins most rife in the world is the _mis_use, or _dis_use, of the potent and tender ties of relationship and kindred.

With regard to coming to you, my dear Hal, I am much perplexed. I have made Mrs. Grote enter into arrangements to suit me, which I do not think I ought now to ask her to alter. Old Rogers is going down to Burnham, to be with me there, going and coming with me; and with what I feel I ought and must do to see my brother, I know not what I can and may do to see you, my dear friends. I am full of care and trouble and anxiety, and feel so weary with all the processes of thinking and feeling, deliberating and deciding, that I am going through, that I must beg you to determine for me. If you, upon due consideration, say "Come," I will come. And forgive me that I put it thus to you, but I have a sense of mental incapacity, amounting almost to imbecility; and I feel, every now and then, as if my brain machinery was running down, and would presently stop altogether. Seriously, what with the greater and the less, the unrest of body and the disquiet of mind, I feel occasionally all but distracted....

I will write you more when I answer your letter of this morning.

God bless you, my dearest friend....

I have so much to say to you about Arnold, but shall perhaps forget it. Is it not curious that reading his thoughts and words should have tended to strengthen in me a conviction of duty upon a point where he appears to take an absolutely different view from mine?--that of seeking and obtaining redress from wrong by an appeal to processes of litigation and legal tribunals; but the earnestness of his exhortations to the conscientious pursuit of one's individual convictions of duty was powerful in making me cleave to my own perception and sense of right, though it brought me to a conclusion diametrically opposite to his own.

This, however, is often the case. The whole character of a good man has vital power over one even where his special opinions are different from one's own, and may even appear to one mistaken.

The abiding spirit of a man's life, more than his special actions and peculiar theories, is that by which other men are moved and admonished. I have extreme faith in the potency of this species of influence, and comparatively less in the effect of example, in special cases and particular details of conduct. Christ's teaching was always aimed at the spirit which should govern us, not at its mere application to isolated instances; and to those who sought advice from Him for application to some special circumstance He invariably answered with a deep and broad rule of conduct, leaving the conscience of the individual to apply it to the individual case; and it seems to me the only way in which we can exhort each other is by the love of truth, the desire of right, the endeavor after holiness, which may still be ours, and to which we may still effectually point our fellow-pilgrims, even when we ourselves have fallen by the wayside under the weight of our own infirmities, failures, and sins.

See! I intended to have broken off when I wrote "God bless you." How I have preached on! But I have much more to say yet. Dear love to Dorothy.

Ever your affectionate
FANNY.

Friday, November 21st, 1845.

The _Hibernia_ is in, the _Great Britain_ is in, and I have had my letters, ... not a few of them from various indifferent people, who want me to do business and attend to their affairs for them here. Truly I am in a plight to do so every way. One man wants me to exert the influence which he is sure _my intimacy with Mr. Bunn_ (!) must give me to have an opera of his brought out at Drury Lane; another writes to me that "my family's well-known interest in the _theatres_" (a large view of the subject) "must certainly enable me to have a play of his produced at one of them;" and so forth, and so on.

All these people will think me a wretch, of course, because I cannot do any of the things they want me to do; moreover, no power of human explanation will suffice hereafter to make them aware that I am not upon terms of affectionate intimacy with Mr. Bunn, that no member of my family has now any interest whatever in any theatre whatever, and that I have been so overwhelmed with anxieties and troubles of my own as to make my attention to the production of operas and plays and such like things quite impossible just now.

The strangest part of all this is that these men write to me, desiring me to commend that which I think bad, and that which, moreover, they know that I think bad; but they seem to imagine that some effort of sincere friendship and kindness on my part is all that is necessary to induce me, in spite of this, to recommend and heartily to praise what I hold to be worthless.

Friendship with eyes and ears and a conscience is, I believe indeed, for the most part, and for the purposes of most people, tantamount to no friendship at all, or perhaps rather to a mild form of enmity.

Do you not think it is rather farcical on your part to request me to answer your letters, when you know 'tis as much as my place (in creation) is worth not to do so, and that, moreover, every day's post brings me that which impresses the sufficiency of each day's _allotments_ devoutly to my mind? Did I ever _not_ answer your letters, you horrid Harriet? My dear Hal, in spite of the last which I received from you, after I had just concluded a very long one to you, bearing date November 20th (there now! you see I remember the date even of my yesterday's letter!), I still wish for another deliberate expression of your opinion about my coming down to Hastings. That you desire it, in spite of all considerations, I know. What your judgment is, now that I have laid all considerations before you, I should like to know....

To-day was appointed for my visit to Mrs. Grote, and Rogers was to have come for me at one o'clock, to go to the Paddington railroad, near the Ten-Mile Station, on which she lives; but lo and behold, just as I was completing my preparations comes an express to say that Mrs. Grote had been seized with one of her neuralgic headaches, and could not possibly receive us till to-morrow! so there ended the proposed business of the day.

I had a visit from John O'Sullivan, a call from Rogers to readjust our plans for to-morrow, and a very kind long visit from Milman.... I receive infinite advice on all hands about my perplexed affairs, all of it most kindly meant, but little of it, alas! available to me. Some of it, indeed, appears to me so worldly, so false, and so full of compromise between right and wrong for the mere sake of expediency; sometimes for cowardice, sometimes for peace, sometimes for pleasure, sometimes for profit, sometimes for mere social consideration,--the whole system (for such it is) accepted and acknowledged as a rule of life--that, as I sit listening to these friendly suggestions, I am half the time shocked at those who utter them, and the other half shocked at myself for being shocked at people so much my betters.... My abiding feeling is that I had better go back to my beloved Lenox, to the side of the "Bowl" (the Indian name of a beautiful small lake between Lenox and Stockbridge), among the Berkshire hills, where selfishness and moral cowardice and worldly expediency exist in each man's practice no doubt quite sufficiently; but where they are not yet universally recognized as a social system, by the laws of which civilized existence should be governed. You know, "a bad action is a thousand times preferable to a bad principle."

Among the other things which the American mail brought me was a charming sketch by my friend W---- of the very site upon which we settled that I should build my house. The drawing is quite rough and unfinished, but full of suggestion to one who knows the place.

I went by appointment this afternoon to see Lady Dacre. Poor thing! she was much overcome at the sight of me. Her deep mourning for her young grandchild, and her pathetic exclamations of almost self-reproach at her own iron strength and protracted old age, touched me most deeply. She seemed somewhat comforted at finding that I had not grown quite old and haggard, and talked to me for an hour of her own griefs and my trials.

She and Lord Dacre pressed me with infinite kindness to go down to them at the Hoo; and though I felt that if we sail on the 4th I ought to be satisfied with having had this glimpse of them, if my stay were prolonged I should like very much to go there for a short time.

Lord Dacre told me that the _Great Western_ had arrived yesterday, and brought most threatening news of the hostile spirit of America about the Oregon question; he fears there will certainly be a war. Good God, how horrible! The two foremost nations of Christendom to disgrace themselves and humanity by giving such a spectacle to the world!

After my visit to the Dacres, I came back to my solitary dinner in Mortimer Street; and, reflecting upon many things during this lonely evening, have wished myself between you and dear Dorothy, who neither of you tell falsehoods or pretend to like things and people that you dislike. Wouldn't it be a nice world if one could live all one's time with none but the best good people? I have spent the whole evening in reading my friend Charles Sumner's Peace Oration, which I only began in America; and to listening to the lady playing on the piano next door, and envying her. Our landlord has a piano in his room downstairs, I find, and he is not at home: now, that is a real temptation of the very devil. How I should like to pay half an hour's visit to it!

My dear Hal, Mrs. Jameson is coming to see me to-morrow morning! What shall I do--what shall I say about her _tiff_ with Adelaide? Wasn't it a pity that Mrs. Grote was taken ill this morning?

God bless you. I want to say one or two words to dear Dorothy, according to right, for she has written to me in your two last letters.

Ever yours,
FANNY.

Oh, I do wish I was with you! for you are not in the least base, mean, cowardly, or worldly.

DEAREST GOOD ANGEL,

Do not fancy, from the vehemence of my style to Harriet, that I am in a worse mental or material condition than I am. I only do hope that before I have lived much longer it will please God to give me grace to love and admire the great bulk of my fellow-creatures more than I do at present. _Certainly_, dear Dorothy, if I should remain in England, I will come down to Hastings for a fortnight; and owe my subsistence for that time to you and Hal. Perhaps these rumors of wars may make some difference in my father's plans. I should be very happy with you both. I have a notion that you would spoil me as well as Hal, and, used to that as I used to be "long time ago," it would be quite an agreeable novelty now.

Ever yours affectionately,
FANNY.

Friday, November 21st, 1845.

This letter was begun yesterday evening, my beloved Hal. My nerves are rather in a quieter state than when I wrote last, thanks to a warm bath and cold head-douche, which, taken together, I recommend to you as beneficial for the brain and general nervous system....

I am going to dine _tete-a-tete_ with Rogers; I have persuaded him to come down with me to Burnham. Poor old man! he is very much broken and altered, very deaf, very sad. This last year has taken from him Sydney and Bobus Smith; and now, the day before yesterday, his old friend Lady Holland died, and he literally stands as though his "turn" were next--it may be mine.

Do you know, that in reading that striking account or Arnold's death, I got such a pain in my heart that I felt as if I was going to die so. _So!_ So, indeed, God grant I might die! but none can die so who has not so lived.

Two things surprise me in Arnold's opinions--three,--his detailed account of wars between nations without any expression of condemnation of war, but rather a soldierly satisfaction in strife and strategy. This, by-the-by, my friend Charles Sumner notices with regret in his "Peace Oration." Then Arnold's apparent approbation of men, even clergymen, going to law for their rights, while at the same time speaking with detestation of the legal profession, which surely involves some inconsistency. Clergymen, according to the vulgar theory, are imagined to be, if not less resentful in spirit, at any rate more pacific in action than the laity, and ought, to my thinking, no more to go to law than to war. The third thing that puzzles me is his constant reference to what he calls a Church, or "_the_ Church," which, with his views about Christianity, is a term that I do not comprehend.

It is curious to me to see Emily's marks along the margin. They are the straight ones, and are applied zealously everywhere to passages of dogmatical discussion about doctrines. Mine you will find the crooked ones, and my pencil, of course, invariably flew to the side of what expressed moral excellence and a perception of material beauty. Those passages that Emily has marked I do not understand--does she? I ask this in all simplicity, and not at all in arrogance; for I cannot make head or tail of them. Perhaps she can make both, for I think she has a taste and talent for theological controversy. I was surprised to find she had not marked his diary and journals at all; I hardly knew how to leave them _un_marked at all. Those Italian journals of his made me almost sick with longing. It is odd that this southern mania should return upon me so strongly after so many years of freedom from it, merely because there seemed to arise just now a possibility of this long-relinquished hope being fulfilled. I know that I could not live in Italy, and I suppose that I should be dreadfully offended and grieved by the actual state of the people, in the midst of all the past and present glory and beauty, which remains a radiant halo round their social and political degradation. But I did once so long to live in Italy, and I have lately so longed to see it, that these journals of Arnold's have made me cry like a child with yearning and disappointment.

My brother John told me that, in his opinion, Arnold was not entirely successful as a trainer of young men: that the power and peculiarity of his own character was such that, in spite of his desire that his pupils should be free, independent, and individual, they involuntarily became more or less mental and moral imitations of him: that he turned out nothing but young Arnolds--copies, on a reduced scale, of himself; few of them, if any, as good as the original. This involuntary conformity to any powerful nature is all but inevitable, where veneration would consciously and deliberately lead to imitation, and thus those minds which would most willingly leave freedom to others, both as a blessing and a duty, become unintentionally compelling influences to beget and perpetuate, in those around them, a tendency to subservience and dependency.

Charles Greville seems very much amused at my enthusiasm for Arnold, and still more when I told him that, for Arnold's sake, I wished to know Bunsen. He said he was sure I should not like him. Rogers told me the same thing; ... that Arnold was a man easily to be taken in by any one who would devote themselves to him, which he--Rogers--said Bunsen did when they met abroad.... How much of this is true, God only knows: Rogers is often very cynical and ill-natured (alas, he has lived so long, and known so much and so many!) It may not be true; though, again, Arnold "was but a man as other men are," and went but upon two legs, like the best of them; nevertheless, if I were to remain in England, I would make some effort to know his chosen friend. Rogers, with whom I dined yesterday, told me that if he had known this wish of mine, he would have asked Bunsen to meet me. I then questioned him about Whately, and he said I should be delighted with him--perhaps, dear H., because he is a little mad, you know, and I appear to some of my friends here to have that mental accomplishment in common with other more illustrious folk.

And now I have finished that book, Arnold's Life, by his spiritual son. It has been to me, in the midst of all that at present harasses and disgusts me, a source of peace and strength, and I have taken it up hour after hour, like the antidote to the petty poisons of daily life.

I have had two notes from Lady Dacre about arranging hours to meet; but, unfortunately, the little time I have is so taken up that it will be impossible for me to see her, as she begs me, this morning. They leave town again on Saturday, and I do not suppose that it will be in my power to get down again to the Hoo, which she urges me very much to do, ... so that I fear I shall not see her before I go, which is a grief to me.

John O'Sullivan does not sail till the 4th, and if we go then, I shall feel that my father will have somebody who will humanely look after him on board ship when I am disabled.... I think he has now some intention of making the expedition for the sake of giving readings, and perhaps of acting again, in the principal cities of the United States, and, apart from my interest and affairs, this may be a sufficient motive for his undertaking the voyage.

I am going to write a word to the dear good angel, and therefore, my beloved Hal, farewell....

[I have not endorsed my brother's opinion about Arnold's influence
on his pupils. Long after this letter was written, I had the honor
and advantage of making the acquaintance of Baron Bunsen, and was
able to judge for myself of the value of the opinions I had heard of
him.]

MY DEAREST DOROTHY,

... I shall hold my mind and body in readiness to come down on Wednesday, if up till Monday you still wish for me. I have told Hal all I have to tell of myself, and she may tell you as much of it as she pleases....

Just after my father's departure, I received a very kind invitation from my friend Lady M----, who is staying in Brighton, to come and remain with her while my father was there....

God bless you, dear Dorothy. I love you more than I seem to know you, but I know that you are good, and most good to my dear Harriet, and that I am

Yours very affectionately,
FANNY.

MORTIMER STREET, Tuesday, November 25th, 1845.
DEAREST HAL,

I had a letter yesterday from my father, from Brighton.... He has renounced the project of crossing the Atlantic at present....

Of course, dear Hal, we are none of us half patient enough. Suffering and injustice are so intolerable to us that we _will_ not endure them, and forget all the time that God allows and endures them.

You ask me if I recollect my discussion with you going down to Southampton. Very well, my dear Hal, and your appearance especially, which, in that witch's travelling-cap of yours, is so extremely agreeable to me that you recur to me in it constantly, and as often I execrate your bonnet. How much I do love beauty! How I delight in the beauty of any one that I love! How thankful I am that I am not beautiful! my self-love would have known no bounds.

I am writing with a very bad pen. I told you of that pen Rogers mended for me, and sitting down to try it, wrote the two following lines, which he gave me, of Cowper's:

"The path of sorrow, and that path alone,
Leads to the land where sorrow is unknown."

You will understand that this touched me much. You hope that my nerves will have leisure to become tranquillized in the country; but the intellectual life by which I am surrounded in England is such a contrast to my American existence that it acts like a species of perpetual intoxication. The subjects of critical, literary, and social interest that I constantly hear so ably and brilliantly discussed excite my mind to a degree of activity that seems almost feverish, after the stagnant inertia to which it has been latterly condemned; and this long-withheld mental enjoyment produces very high nervous excitement in me too. The antagonism I often feel at the low moral level upon which these fine intellectual feats are performed afterwards causes a reaction from my sense of satisfaction, and sometimes makes that appear comparatively worthless, the power, skill, and dexterity of which concealed the sophistry and seduced me while the debate was going on.

My dearest H----, I wrote all this at Burnham. You will see by this that we do not leave England by the next steamer, and I think there is every probability of my remaining here for some time to come, and, therefore, spending a full fortnight with you at Hastings....

I have a quantity to say to you about everything, but neither time nor room. We had much talk about Arnold at the Beeches, and the justice dealt him by a cynical poet, a hard-headed political economist, a steeled man of the world, and two most dissimilar unbelievers was various and curious.

Yours ever,
FANNY.

MORTIMER STREET, November 26th, 1845.
MY DEAREST HAL,

I expect my father home to-day; but, as I have written to you, his note from Brighton expressed no annoyance at my determination....

I must see if I cannot possibly write something for a few pence, so as not to stretch out a beggar's hand even to him.... I enjoyed my visit to Burnham extremely: the admirable clever talk, the capital charming music, the delight of being in the country, and the ecstasy of a fifteen miles' ride through beautiful parks and lanes, filled my time most pleasurably. I know no one who has such a capacity (that looks as if I had written _ra_pacity--either will do) for enjoyment, or has so much of it in mere life--when I am not being tortured--as I have. I ought to be infinitely thankful for my elastic temperament; there never was anything like it but the lady heroine of Andersen's story "The Ball," who had "cork in her body."

We had much talk about Arnold and Bunsen, much about Sydney Smith, several of whose letters Mrs. Grote gave us to read. Rogers read them aloud, and his comments were very entertaining, especially with the additional fun of Mrs. Grote holding one of the letters up to me in a corner alone, when I read, "I never think of death in London but when I meet Rogers," etc.

I have written a very long letter to my sister to-day, and one to E----. I am going to dine with Mrs. Procter, to meet Milnes, whose poetry you know I read to you here one evening, and you liked it, as I do, some of it, very much.... As for L----, I think one should be a great deal cleverer than he is to be so amazingly conceited, _and of course, if one was, one wouldn't be_; and if that sentence is not lovely, neither is "Beaver hats." ("Beaver hats is the best that _is_, for a shower don't hurt 'em, the least that _are_," quoth an old countrywoman to Mrs. FitzHugh, comparing the respective merits of beaver and straw.)

Only think, Hal, what an enchanting man this landlord of ours must be! He has had his pianoforte tuned, and actually proposes sending it up into one of these rooms for my use. I incline to think the difficulty with him is not so much having a woman in the house, as a natural desire to receive a larger compensation if he takes this woman--me--in.

God bless you, dear. I feel happy in the almost certain prospect of being with you before very long, and you cannot imagine how much my heart is lightened by the more hopeful circumstances in which I think I am placed....

Good-bye, dear Hal. Give my love to Dorothy, and believe me

Ever yours,
FANNY.

November 29th, 1845.

I have just returned home from a dinner at Mrs. Procter's. It is a quarter to twelve o'clock, and until twelve I will write to you, my dear Hal. I found your ink-bottle on my table. Thank you. This is my birthday. Did you give it me on that account?--a compliment to the anniversary. I have not written so much as usual to you these last few days; my time is very much taken up; for, even at this dead season of the year, as it is called in London, I have many morning visitors, who come and sit with me a long while, during which time no letters get written. I wrote to you last on Wednesday, the day on which my father was to come to town. At one o'clock, accordingly, he marched in, looking extremely well, kissed me, opened his letters, wrote me a check for L10, and at five o'clock went off to Brighton again, telling me he should remain there until next Monday week, and, in the mean time, bidding me "_amuse myself_, and make myself as comfortable as I could." ...

It is past twelve now, and I am getting tired; the late hours and good dinners and wine and coffee are a wonderful change in my American habits of life, and seem to me more pleasant than wholesome, after the much simpler mode of existence to which I have become accustomed latterly. I took a good long walk on Friday, across the Green Park and St. James's Park to Spring Gardens, and up the Strand to Coutts', and home again....

I had a pleasant dinner yesterday at Lady Essex's. Rogers took me there, and brought me home in his carriage; he is exceedingly kind to me. Henry Greville dined with us, sat by me, and talked to me the whole time about my sister, which was very pleasant and did me good. Sir Edward Codrington and his daughter, who are old friends of mine, were there, and met me with great cordiality; and though the evening was not very brilliant, I enjoyed myself very much.

Kinglake, the author of "Eothen," paid me a long visit to-day, and was very agreeable....

Mrs. Procter asked me to-day to take their family dinner with them, because she knew I should else dine all alone. Mr. Procter was not at home, so that we had a _tete-a-tete_ gossip about everybody....

I know very well that nobody likes to be bored, but I think it would be better to be bored to extinction than to mortify and pain people by rejecting their society because they are not intensely amusing or distinguished, or even because they are intensely tiresome and commonplace....

Good-night, dear. My eyes smart and ache; I must go to bed. I have seen to-day some verses written by an American friend of mine on my departure. I think they are good, but cannot be quite sure, as they are about myself. I will send them to you, if you care to see them.

Ever yours,
FANNY.

MORTIMER STREET, November 30th, 1845.

I wrote to you until 12.30 last night, and it is now 12.30 this morning, and it must be very obvious to you that, not being Dorothy, I can have nothing under the heavens to say to you. Let me see for the _events_ of these hours. After I went to bed I read, according to a practice which I have steadily followed for the past year, in the hope of substituting some other _last thoughts_ and visions for those which have haunted me, waking or sleeping, during that time. So last night, having, alas! long ago finished Arnold, and despatched two historical plays, long enough, but nothing else, to have been written by Schiller, which my brother gave me, I betook myself to certain agricultural reports, written by a Mr. Coleman, an American, who came over here to collect information upon these subjects for an agricultural society. These reports he gave me the other day, and you know I read implicitly whatever is put into my hands, holding every species of book worth reading for something. So I read about fencing, enclosing, draining, ditching, and ploughing, till I fell asleep, fancying myself Ceres.

This morning, after some debate with myself about staying away from church, I deliberately came to the conclusion that I would do so, because I had a bad headache. (Doesn't that sound like a child who doesn't want to go to church, and says it has got a stomach-ache? It's true, nevertheless.) But--_and_ because I have such a number of letters to write to America, that I thought I would say my prayers at home, and then do that.

And now, before beginning my American budget, I have written one to Lady Dacre, one to Emily, one to my brother, and this one to you; and shall now start off to the other side of the Atlantic, by an epistle to J---- C----, the son of the afore-mentioned agriculturist, a friend of mine, who when I last left America held me by the arm till the bell rang for the friends of those departing by the steamer to abandon them and regain the shore, and whose verses about me, which I mentioned to you in my last night's letter, please me more than his father's account of top-dressing, subsoiling, and all the details of agriculture, which, however, I believe is the main fundamental interest of civilization.

Before this, however, I must go and take a walk, because the sun shines beautifully, and

"I must breathe some vital air,
If any's to be found in Cavendish Square."

I'm sorry to say we are going to leave this comfortable lodging and our courteous landlord, whose civilities to me are most touching. I do not know what my father intends doing, but he talked of taking a house at _Brompton_. What a distance from everything, for him and for me!

I have just had a kind note from the M----s, again earnestly bidding me down to Hampshire; another affectionate invitation from Lord and Lady Dacre to the Hoo, and a warm and sympathizing letter from Amelia Twiss, for whom, as you know, I entertain even a greater regard and esteem than for her sisters....

My dear Hal, when my father told me that he was going to Brighton for three weeks, it seemed quite impossible that we should sail for America on December 4th. Now that that question is settled, at any rate temporarily, I feel restored to something like calm, and think I shall probably go and see the M----s, and perhaps run down to Hastings to visit--Dorothy Wilson, of course.

God bless you, dear. Does Dorothy write better about nothing than I do?

Ever yours,
FANNY.

THE HOO, WELWYN, HERTS, December, 1845.
MY DEAREST HAL,

... God knows I am admonished to patience, both by my own helplessness and the inefficiency of those who, it seems to me, ought to be able to help me....

Doubtless, my father reasonably regrets the independence which I might by this time have earned for myself in my profession, and feels anxious about my unprovided future. I have written to Chorley, the only person I know to whom I can apply on the subject, to get me some means of publishing the few manuscript verses I have left in some magazine or other.... If I cannot succeed in this, I shall try if I can publish my "English Tragedy," and make a few pounds by it. It is a wretchedly uncomfortable position, but compared with all that has gone before it is _only_ uncomfortable.

I came down here yesterday, and found, though the night was rainy and extremely cold, dear Lord Dacre and B---- standing out on the door-step to receive me. She has grown tall, and stout, and very handsome.... Is it not wonderful that the spirit of life should be potent enough ever to make us forget the death perpetually hovering over and ready to pounce upon us? and yet how little dread, habitually, disturbs us, either for ourselves or others, lying all the time, as we do, within the very grasp of doom! Lord Dacre is looking well; my friend Lady Dacre is grown more deaf and much broken. Poor thing! she has had a severe trial, in the premature loss of those dearest to her....

God bless you, dear Hal. Good-by. Love to dear Dorothy.

Ever yours,
FANNY.

THE HOO, WELWYN, December 6th, 1845.
MY DEAREST HAL,

I have been spending the greater part of the morning in sitting for my likeness to a young girl here, a Miss E----, daughter of some old friends of the Dacres, whose talent for drawing, and especially for taking likenesses, is uncommon.

That which Lawrence pronounced the most difficult task he ever undertook could hardly prove an easy one to a young lady artist, who has, however, succeeded in giving a very sufficient likeness of one of my faces; and I think it so pretty that I am charmed with it, as indeed I always have been with every likeness almost that has ever been taken of me, but the only true ones--the daguerreotypes. However, even daguerreotypes are not absolutely accurate; the process is imperfect, except for plane (not _plain_, you know) surfaces. Besides, after all, it takes a human hand to copy a human face, because of the human soul in both; and the great sun in heaven wants fire, light, and power, to reproduce that spark of divinity in us, before which his material glory grows pale.

As long as he was Phoebus Apollo, and went about, man-fashion, among the girls, making love to such of them as he fancied, he may have been something of an artist, his conduct might be called artistic, I should say; but now that he sits in the sky, staring with his one eye at womankind in general, Sir Joshua, and even Sir Thomas, are worth a score of him.

While I was sitting, Mrs. E----, my young artist's mother, read aloud to us the new volume of Lord Chesterfield's writings.

My impression of Lord Chesterfield is a very ignorant one, principally derived from the very little I remember of that profound science of superficiality contained in his "Letters to his Son." The matter I heard to-day exalted him infinitely in my esteem, and charmed me extremely, both by the point and finish of the style (what fine workmanship good prose is!) and the much higher moral tone than anything I remembered, and consequently expected from him.

Mrs. E---- read us a series of his "Sketches of his Political Contemporaries," quite admirable for the precision, distinctness, and apparent impartiality with which they were drawn, and for their happiness of expression-and purity of diction. Among them is a character of Lord Scarborough, which, if it be a faithful portrait, is perhaps the highest testimony in itself to the merit of one who called such a man his intimate friend; and going upon the faith of the old proverbs, "Show me your company and I'll tell you what you are," "Like will to like," "Birds of a feather flock together," and all the others that, unlike Sancho Panza, I do not give you, has amazingly advanced Lord Chesterfield in my esteem.

We have this morning parted with some of the company that was here. Mr. and Mrs. Hibbard, clever and agreeable people, have gone away, and, to my great regret, carried with them my dear B----, for whom my affection and esteem are as great as ever. Mrs. Hibbard is the daughter of Sydney Smith, and so like him that I kept wondering when she would begin to abuse the bishops....

Dearest Hal, I took no exercise yesterday but a drive in an open carriage with Lady Dacre. The Americans call the torture of being thumped over their roads in their vehicles _exercise_, and so, no doubt, was Sancho's tossing in the blanket; but voluntary motion being the only effectual motion for any good purpose of health (or holiness, I take it), I must be off, and tramp while the daylight lasts.

What a delightful thing good writing is! What a delightful thing good talking is! How much delight there is in the exercise and perfection of our faculties! How _full_ a thing, and admirable, and wonderful is this nature of ours! So Hamlet indeed observes--but he was mad. Good-bye. Give my love to dear Dorothy, and

Believe me ever yours,
FANNY.

THE HOO, WELWYN, December 7th, 1845.
MY DEAREST HAL,

Just before I came down here, Rogers paid me a long visit, and talked a great deal about Lady Holland; and I felt interested in what he said about the woman who had been the centre of so remarkable a society and his intimate friend for so many years. Having all her life appeared to suffer the most unusual terror, not of death only, but of any accident that could possibly, or impossibly, befall her, he said that she had died with perfect composure, and, though consciously within the very shadow of death for three whole days before she crossed the dark threshold, she expressed neither fear nor anxiety, and exhibited a tranquillity of mind by no means general at that time, and which surprised many of the persons of her acquaintance. If, however, it be true, as some persons intimate with her have told me, that her terrors were not genuine, but a mere expression of her morbid love of power, insisting at all costs and by all means upon occupying everybody about her with herself, then it is not so strange that she should at last have ceased to demand the homage and attention of others as she so closely approached the time when even their most careless recollection would cease to be at her command.

Rogers said that she spoke of her life with considerable satisfaction, asserting that she had done as much good and as little harm as she could during her existence. The only person about whom she expressed any tenderness was her daughter, Lady ----, with whom, however, she had not been always upon the best terms; and who, being ultra-_serious_ (as it is comically called), had not unnaturally an occasional want of sympathy with her very unserious mother. Lady Holland, however, desired much to see her, and she crossed the Channel, having travelled in great haste, and arrived just in time to fulfil her mother's wish and receive her blessing.

Her will creates great astonishment--created, I should say; for she is twice buried already, under the Corn Law question. She left her son only L2000, and to Lord John Russell L1500 a year, which at his death reverts to Lady L----'s children. To Rogers, strange to say, nothing; but he professed to think it an honor to be left out. To my brother, strange to say, something (Lord Holland's copy of the "British Essayists," in thirty odd volumes); and to Lady Palmerston her collection of fans, which, though it was a very valuable and curious one, seems to me a little like making fun of that superfine fine lady.

I have just come back from church, dear Hal, where the Psalms for the day made me sick. Is it not horrible that we should make Christian prayers of Jewish imprecations? How can one utter, without shuddering, such sentences as "Let them be confounded, and put to shame, that seek after my soul. Let them be as the dust before the wind: and the angel of the Lord scattering them. Let their way be dark and slippery: and let the angel of the Lord persecute them"? Is it not dreadful to think that one must say, as I did, "God forbid!" while my eyes rested on the terrible words contained in the appointed _worship_ of the day; or utter, in God's holy house, that to which one attaches no signification; or, worst of all, connect in any way such sentiments with one's own feelings, and repeat, with lips that confess Christ, curses for which His blessed command has substituted blessings?

We were speaking on this very subject at Milman's the other evening, and when I asked Mrs. Milman if she joined in the repetition of such passages, she answered with much simplicity, like a good woman and a faithful clergywoman, "Oh yes! but then, you know, one never means what one says,"--which, in spite of our company consisting chiefly of "witty Churchmen," elicited from it a universal burst of laughter. I have not space or time to enlarge more upon this, and you may be thankful for it....

I will just give you two short extracts from conversations I have had here, and leave you to judge how I was affected by them....

I am sometimes thankful that I do not live in my own country, for I am afraid I should very hardly escape the Pharisee's condemnation for thinking myself better than my neighbors; and yet, God knows, not only that I am, but that I do, not. But how come people's nations so inside out and so upside down?

Good-bye, my dear. I am enjoying the country every hour of the day. Give my love to dear Dorothy.

Ever yours,
FANNY.

MORTIMER STREET, Monday, December 8th, 1845.
MY DEAREST HAL,

Your delightful little inkstand is the very pest of my life; it keeps tumbling over backwards every minute, and pouring the ink all over, and making me swear (which is really a pity), and is, in short, invaluable; and I am so much more obliged to you than I was even at first for it, now that I know, I hope, all its inestimable qualities, that I think it right to mention the increased gratitude I feel for the hateful little bottle. There it goes again! Oh, thank you, my love! Just let me pick it up, and wipe the mess it has made.

I left the Hoo this morning, and have just been a couple of hours in Mortimer Street. I find my father going to dine at Judge Talfourd's, and, I am happy to say, free from the pain in his side which had alarmed me, and which I now suppose, as he did at the time, to have proceeded only from cold. He looks well, and is in good spirits.

I find a note here from Miss Berry, inviting me to dinner _to-day_, which has been waiting for me ever since Friday. Of course I could not go, and felt distressed that the old lady's kind bidding should have remained so long unanswered. Just as I was despatching my excuse, however, in rushed Agnes (Gooseberry, you know, as Sydney Smith used to call her), all screams and interjections, to know why I hadn't answered her note, which was very annoying. However, in nursery language, I _peacified_ the good old lady to the best of my ability. I am sorry to lose their pleasant party, but have an excessive dislike to hurrying immediately from one thing to another in this way, and therefore must really spend this evening of my arrival in peace and quiet.

Mrs. ---- called to-day. I am sorry to say that she provokes me now, instead of only annoying me, as she used to do. It's really quite dreadful! She talks such odd bits of sentimental morality, that somehow or other don't match with each other, or with anything else in creation, that it disgusts me, and I am so disagreeable and so conscious of it, and she is so conscious that I am conscious of it, that, poor things! it is quite piteous for both of us.

You ask me the name of the political economist I met at Burnham. William Nassau Senior, a very clever man, a great talker, good upon all subjects, but best upon all those on which I am even below my average depth of ignorance, public affairs, questions of government, the science of political economy, and all its kindred knowledges. The rest of our party were only Rogers and myself, our host and hostess (Mr. and Mrs. Grote), and a brother of the latter, who has been living many years in Sweden, has a charming countenance, a delightful voice, sings Swedish ballads exquisitely, worships Jenny Lind, and knows Frederica Bremer intimately. He added an element of gentleness and softness to the material furnished by our cast-iron "man of facts" and our acrid poet, that was very agreeable. In speaking of Arnold, I was ineffably amused at hearing Mrs. Grote characterize him as a "_very weak man_," which struck me as very funny. _The Esprit Forte_, however, I take it, merely referred to his belief in the immortality of the soul, the existence of a God, and a few other similar "superstitions." They seemed all to agree that he was likely to "turn out" _only_ such men as Lord Sandon and Lord Ashley. [The training of Arnold, acting upon a noble mind inherited from a noble-minded mother, produced the illustrious man whom all Protestant Christendom has lately joined to mourn, Dean Stanley, of whom, however, no mention was made in the above discussion.] You, who know the political bias of these men, will be better able to judge than I am, how far this was a compliment to Arnold's intellect; to his moral influence, I suppose, the character of "only such" pupils would bear high testimony.

My father reads to-morrow at Highgate, and, I believe, twice again there in the course of next week. Beyond that, I think he has no immediate plans for reading, and indeed his plans seem altogether to me in the most undecided state.

I found letters here from my sister and E----, both of them urging me to join them in Rome; these I read to my father, and I am thankful to say that he seemed to entertain the idea of my doing so, and even hinted at the possibility of his accompanying me thither, inasmuch as he felt rather fatigued with his reading, would be glad to recruit a little, would wish to protect me on my journey to Italy, and, finally, never having been in Rome, would like to see it, etc. He said, after we got there he could either leave me with my sister or stay himself till the spring, when we might all come back together.

You may imagine how enchanted I was at the bare suggestion of such a plan. I told him nothing he could do would give me so much happiness, and that as I had come back upon his hands in the state of dependence in which I formerly belonged to him, it was for him to determine in what manner the burden would be least grievous to him, least costly, and least inconvenient; that if he thought it best I should go to my sister, I should be thankful to do so; but that if he would come with me, I should be enchanted.