hen 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. Trul