occasioned by aneurism in the
throat.

I am marking "Wilhelm Meister" for you; it is a book that interests me
almost more than any other I could name; it is very painful, and I know
nothing comparable to the conception and execution of Mignon. The whole
book is so wise, so life-like, so true, and so merciless in its truth,
that it is like life itself, endured by a stoic, an illustration of what
existence would be to a thoughtful mind without faith in God--that faith
which alone can bear us undespairing over the earth, where the mere doom
of inevitable change would be enough to fill the human soul with
amazement and anguish.

Goethe's books always make me lay a terrified and aching hold on my
religious faith; they show me, even as life itself does, the need of
steadfast belief in something better, if one would not lie down and die
from the mere sense of what has been endured, what is endured, and what
must be endured.

I forgot to tell you that I have had proposals again from the Norwich
manager, and from Bath and Bristol; and yesterday the Princess's Theatre
potentate called upon me; but upon my telling him that I should prefer
transacting my arrangements with him in writing rather than _viva voce_,
he took himself off....

God bless you, dear. Give my dear love to Dorothy.

Yours ever,
FANNY.

18, ORCHARD STREET, December 11th, 1847.
MY DEAR HAL,

I do not feel sure, from the tenor of your letter, that you do not wish
to have my dog Hero boarded at Jenny Wade's; if you do, he shall go
there. You are a far better judge than I am of the propriety of keeping
a well-fed dog among your starving people. That they themselves would do
so, I can believe; for they are impulsive and improvident, and more
alive to sentiments of kindliness and generosity than to the dictates of
common sense and prudence, or of principles of justice. Hero has been
used to luxury, both in his lodging and board; but human hearts have to
do without their food, and shall not his dog's body? I am fond of him,
poor fellow, and would fain have him kindly cared for.... I do not
consider your parallel a just one--between the bestowing of existence
upon flies and the withholding immortality from a portion of the human
race, except, indeed, that both may be exercises of arbitrary will and
power. It is perfectly true that th