any respects illogical and anomalous, as it appears to its
opponents--will have to fight a hard and difficult battle.

Lady Ellesmere was absolutely in despair about the bill for admitting
the Jews to Parliament, and had influence enough with Lord Ellesmere to
make him vote against it. This is sad enough; but she is so excellent
that her influence over him, in one case where it is bad is good in a
great many others....

God bless you, my dear. Give my love to Dorothy: I am both yours, but
yours most particularly,

FANNY.

P.S. My course with regard to my engagement at the Princess Theatre was
determined by my father's opinion, and confirmed by the advice of all my
friends who spoke to me upon the subject--Emily, Harness, the Grevilles,
and others; and all that Mr. Maddox said in his various conversations
with me upon the subject, enabled the best experienced among us to form
a very fair idea of what he could afford to give, and what I was
justified in asking.

29, KING STREET, Friday, February 18th, 1848.

I have been this morning to a rehearsal of Macbeth, at which Macready
did not attend; so that in point of fact, as far as I was concerned, it
was _nil_. He is, I believe, finishing some country engagements, and I
suppose had not returned to town. I have another rehearsal to-morrow, at
which it is to be hoped he will attend, as otherwise my being there is
really quite a work of supererogation.

My men friends--among whom I include my father--one and all, did what I
think women would not have done. The minute Mr. Maddox agreed to the
terms I had demanded, they lamented bitterly (even my dear Mr.
Harness--who is a good man) that I had not stood out for higher ones,
feeling quite sure I should have got them. Now, this I think quite as
contemptible, and a great deal more dishonest, than the womanly process
(Emily's and yours) of lamenting that I had not taken less than I had
demanded, because you feared my doing so had broken off the negotiation
altogether. I think, upon the whole, it behooves people to know what
they mean, and to abide by it, without either weak regrets at an ill
result, or selfish ones that it is not better than what one had made up
one's mind to--when it seems that it might have been so. I do wish
people would learn to be like my aunt's cook, and "stand upon their own
bottom, with fortitude and similarit