more brilliant personages. Somehow my heart leans more to her than
to Eliza Lynn, for instance. Not that I have read either _Amymone_
or _Azeth_, but I have seen extracts from them which I found it
literally impossible to digest. They presented to my imagination
Lytton Bulwer in petticoats--an overwhelming vision. By-the-bye, the
American critic talks admirable sense about Bulwer--candour obliges
me to confess that.

'I must abruptly bid you good-bye for the present.--Yours sincerely,

'CURRER BELL.'

TO W. S. WILLIAMS

'_December_ 7_th_, 1848.

'MY DEAR SIR,--I duly received Dr. Curie's work on Homoeopathy, and
ought to apologise for having forgotten to thank you for it. I will
return it when I have given it a more attentive perusal than I have
yet had leisure to do. My sister has read it, but as yet she remains
unshaken in her former opinion: she will not admit there can be
efficacy in such a system. Were I in her place, it appears to me
that I should be glad to give it a trial, confident that it can
scarcely do harm and might do good.

'I can give no favourable report of Emily's state. My father is very
despondent about her. Anne and I cherish hope as well as we can, but
her appearance and her symptoms tend to crush that feeling. Yet I
argue that the present emaciation, cough, weakness, shortness of
breath are the results of inflammation, now, I trust, subsided, and
that with time these ailments will gradually leave her. But my
father shakes his head and speaks of others of our family once
similarly afflicted, for whom he likewise persisted in hoping against
hope, and who are now removed where hope and fear fluctuate no more.
There were, however, differences between their case and
hers--important differences I think. I must cling to the expectation
of her recovery, I cannot renounce it.

'Much would I give to have the opinion of a skilful professional man.
It is easy, my dear sir, to say there is nothing in medicine, and
that physicians are useless, but we naturally wish to procure aid for
those we love when we see them suffer; most painful is it to sit
still, look on, and do nothing. Would that my sister added to her
many grea