who was dressed
in white, "Henry, my dear, who is the gentleman in the white muslin
gown?"]

You ask me, dear H----, about Lady Francis's visit. She did not come, as
she had proposed doing, on the Friday, for she caught the influenza, and
was extremely unwell for a few days; she was here on Monday, coughing
incessantly and looking ill. In the course of our conversation, she
exclaimed, "Education! bless me, I think of nothing else but the
education of the poor. Don't you find people have got to think and talk
about nothing else? I protest, I don't." This made me laugh, and you
will understand why; but she didn't, and pressed me very much to tell
her what there was absurd in the matter to me: but I declined answering
her, at least then and there, as I could not enter into a full
discussion of the subject, down to the roots of it, just at that moment.
But, as you will well comprehend, the circumstances that render this
feverish zeal for education comical, in some of its fine-lady advocates,
are peculiarly strong in her case, though she is in earnest enough, and
thoroughly well-intentioned in whatever she does. Unwittingly, they are
serving the poor, as they certainly do not contemplate doing; for by
educating them, even as they are likely to do so, they will gradually
prepare them, intelligently and therefore irresistibly, to demand such
changes in their political and social conditions as they may now
impotently desire, and will assuredly hereafter obtain; but not, I
think, with the entirely cordial acquiescence of their Tory educators.

We went to the opera the Saturday after you left us, but both the opera
and the ballet were indifferent performances.... Do you not know that to
misunderstand and be misunderstood is one of the inevitable conditions,
and, I think, one of the especial purposes, of our existence? The
principal use of the affection of human beings for each other is to
supply the want of perfect comprehension, which is impossible. All the
faith and love which we possess are barely sufficient to bridge over
the abyss of individualism which separates one human being from another;
and they would not or could not exist, if we really understood each
other. God bless you, dear.

Yours ever,
FANNY.

CLARGES STREET, March 28th, 1841.
DEAREST H----,

My Sunday's avocatio