tary assumption of the character....

Do not be troubled overmuch for or about me, my dearest friend; but
commend me, as I do you and myself, to God, and believe me

Ever yours,
FANNY.

10, PARK PLACE, Saturday Evening.
MY DEAR HAL,

I never did, and I never shall, offer anything I write to anybody. If my
friends ask me for anything I write, I will get it for them, just as I
would anything else they ask me to get or to do for them; but I have no
idea of volunteering such a bestowal upon anybody. Emily asked me for a
copy of my "Year of Consolation," and I have promised her one, and I
will certainly give you one if you wish for it. As for accounting, by
any process of reasoning of mine, for your desire to have my book, I am
quite unable to do so.

My love for my friends would never make me wish to read their books,
unless I thought their book likely to be worth reading. Now, I cannot
assume this with regard to my own, especially as I don't believe it.

Our friends' characters, their love for us, and ours for them, is the
stuff of which our adhesion is made; and unless I had a genius for a
friend, I should care little for any other mental exhibitions from those
I loved than those their daily intercourse afforded me. In personal
intercourse, unless a person is a genius, you really get that which is
best intellectually, as well as every other way, from your friend. Even
in the case of a great genius, I should think his daily intercourse
likely to be more valuable in an intellectual point of view than his
best works; but then, of such a mind one would naturally wish to
possess all and every product that one could obtain. If I thought
myself a genius, I might offer you my books unasked--perhaps.

I shall be at the Albion at Manchester, and if you wish to hear from me,
you will do well to write to me there....

I have had a most terrible day of fatigue and worry, breaking my back
with packing my things, and my heart with paying my bills.

Dear Henry Greville goes to within fifty miles of Manchester with me
to-morrow, and stays at a friend's house, whence he and Alfred Potocki
purpose coming on for the play on Tuesday evening. After all, I am not
sorry he is coming; his regard for me is not of a sort to make me dread
the weakening effect of his sympathy, and it will be comfortable to