'_November_ 22_nd_, 1849.

'MY DEAR SIR,--If it is discouraging to an author to see his work
mouthed over by the entirely ignorant and incompetent, it is equally
reviving to hear what you have written discussed and analysed by a
critic who is master of his subject--by one whose heart feels, whose
powers grasp the matter he undertakes to handle. Such refreshment
Eugene Forcade has given me. Were I to see that man, my impulse
would be to say, "Monsieur, you know me, I shall deem it an honour to
know you."

'I do not find that Forcade detects any coarseness in the work--it is
for the smaller critics to find that out. The master in the art--the
subtle-thoughted, keen-eyed, quick-feeling Frenchman, knows the true
nature of the ingredients which went to the composition of the
creation he analyses--he knows the true nature of things, and he
gives them their right name.

'Yours of yesterday has just reached me. Let me, in the first place,
express my sincere sympathy with your anxiety on Mrs. Williams's
account. I know how sad it is when pain and suffering attack those
we love, when that mournful guest sickness comes and takes a place in
the household circle. That the shadow may soon leave your home is my
earnest hope.

'Thank you for Sir J. Herschel's note. I am happy to hear Mr. Taylor
is convalescent. It may, perhaps, be some weeks yet before his hand
is well, but that his general health is in the way of
re-establishment is a matter of thankfulness.

'One of the letters you sent to-day addressed "Currer Bell" has
almost startled me. The writer first describes his family, and then
proceeds to give a particular account of himself in colours the most
candid, if not, to my ideas, the most attractive. He runs on in a
strain of wild enthusiasm about _Shirley_, and concludes by
announcing a fixed, deliberate resolution to institute a search after
Currer Bell, and sooner or later to find him out. There is power in
the letter--talent; it is at times eloquently expressed. The writer
somewhat boastfully intimates that he is acknowledged the possessor
of high intellectual attainments, but, if I mistake not, he betrays a
temper to be shunned, habits to be mistrusted. While laying claim to
the character of being affectionate, warm-hearted, and adhesive,
there is but a s