aps her
gentlemen eulogists took no cognizance, went to make up the charm of
the outward appearance which they admired--the candor, truth, humility,
and moral dignity, the "inward and spiritual grace," of which what they
praised is but "the outward and visible sign." As I know this, the
commendation of her superficial good gifts, by superficial observers,
was very agreeable to me.

You ask me if I think you are going to keep up a correspondence with me
at this rate. I do not know exactly what that means; but be sure of one
thing, that as long as I can succeed in drawing an answer out of you, I
shall _persewere_.

My father has a violent lumbago; so, I am sorry to say, has the theatre,
which, in spite of my sister's exertions, can hardly keep upon its legs.
Her success has to compensate for the deplorable houses on the nights
when she does not appear. But great as her success is, it will not make
the nights pay on which she does not sing, when the theatre is
absolutely empty. What they will do when she goes I cannot in the
smallest degree conceive. _We_ are just being sucked into the Maelstrom
of bills, parcels, packages, books, pictures, valuables, trumpery,
rummaging, heaping together, throwing apart, selecting, discarding, and
stowing away that precedes an orderly departure after a two years'
disorderly residence; in the midst of all which I have neither leisure
nor leave to attend to the heartache which, nevertheless, accompanies
the whole process with but little intermission.

Love to your dear lord and the dear girls, and believe me ever, my dear
Granny,

Your affectionate
FANNY.

HARLEY STREET, Friday, 14th, 1842.
DEAR GRANNY,

I find there is every probability of our not leaving England until the
4th of November (several people tell me they have been told so), and
such is the extreme uncertainty of our movements always that it would
not surprise me very violently if we did not go then. I fear, however,
this will not afford me any further glimpses of you; and, indeed, at the
bottom of my heart, I do not wish for any more "last dying speeches and
confessions." To part is very bad, but to keep continually parting is
unendurable.

My sister goes on with the "Semiramide," and her attraction in it
increases. She acts and sings admirably in it, and, all sisterly
prepossessions