a manner that I have never
forgotten....

You bid me tell you how I am in mind, body, and estate. My mind is in a
tolerably wholesome frame, my body not so well, having a cold and cough
hanging about it, and suffering a good deal of pain the last few days.
My estate is so far flourishing that I brought back a tolerable wage and
earnings from my eastern expedition, and so shall not have to sell out
any of my small funded property for my daily bread yet a while.

You say that tact is not necessarily insincerity. No, I suppose not: I
must say I suppose, because I have never known anybody, eminently gifted
with tact, who appeared to me perfectly sincere. I am told that the
woman I have just been writing about, Lady C----, of whom my personal
knowledge is too slight to judge how far she deserves the report, never
departs from the truth; and yet is so gentle, good, and considerate,
that she never wounds anybody's feelings. If this is so, it deserves a
higher title than tact, and appears to me a great attainment in the
prime grace of Christianity. I have always believed that where
love--charity--abounded, truth might, and could, and would abound
without offence. Which of the great French divines said, "Quand on n'est
point dans les bornes de la charite, on n'est bientot plus dans celles
de la verite"? It sounds like Fenelon, but I believe it is Bossuet. Tact
always appears to me a sort of moral elegance, an accomplishment, rather
than a virtue; dexterity, as it were, doing the work of sensibility and
benevolence.

I think it likely that Mitchell will call in the course of the morning,
and I may still possibly make some arrangement with him about my
readings....

I have had a pressing invitation from Mrs. Mitchell, who is staying at
Brighton with her boys, to go down there and visit her. It would be very
nice if I could go thence to 18, Marina, St. Leonard's, and pay a visit
to some other friends of mine. Your lodgings will, however, I fear, be
full; and then, too, you may not want me, and it is as well not to be
too forward in offering one's self to one's dearest friends, for fear of
the French "Thank you," which with them, civil folk that they are,
means, "No, they'd rather not." With us, it would imply, "Yes,
gratefully;" otherwise, it is, "Thank you for nothing."

Kiss Dorothy for me.
Ever as ever yours,
FANNY.