,
if I will go to Liverpool _and act for his benefit_, he will pay me what
he owes me; to which I have replied that, when he _has_ paid me what he
owes me, we will see about further transactions with each other.
Certainly "Nature hath framed strange fellows in her time."

Oh, my dear! in Parker's "Discourse upon Religion"--the book I told you
I was reading--I light upon this passage: "The indolent and the sensual
love to have a visible master in spiritual things, who will spare them
the _agony_ of thought." Is not that definition of thought after my own
heart, and just as I should have written it?

God bless you. Give my love to dear Dorothy.

Ever as ever yours,
FANNY.

DEAR HARRIET,

I have not yet read either of Mrs. Gaskell's books, but I mean to do so.
I have just got through, with unbounded amazement, a book called
"Realities," written by a Miss L----, for whom Lady M---- has taken a
great fancy. A more extraordinary production--realities with a
vengeance--I certainly have seldom read; and the book is in such
contrast with the manner and appearance of the authoress that it will be
a long time before I get over my surprise at both.

Imagine this lady having thought proper to introduce in her story an
eccentric vagabond of a woman, whom she has called "Fanny Kemble." Upon
Lady M----'s asking her--I think with some pardonable indignation,
considering that I am her intimate friend--how she came to do such an
unwarrantable thing; if she was not aware that "Fanny Kemble" was the
real name of a live woman at this moment existing in English society,
Miss L---- ingenuously replied, "Oh dear! that she'd never thought of
that: that she only knew it was a celebrated dramatic name, and so she
had put it into her book." _Sancta Simplicitas!_ I should think I might
sue her for libel and defamation.

The books that women write now are a curious sign of the times, and an
indication of great changes in opinion, as well as alteration in
practice.

After all, women are _part_ men, "bone of my bone and flesh of my
flesh." As long as they benefited--and they did highly--by the
predominance of the conservative spirit in civilized society, they were
the most timid and obstinate of conservatives. But emancipation, or, to
speak more civilly, freedom, is dawning upon them from various quarters;
Democracy is coming to rule the earth; a