I have the greatest tenderness for the memory of Hood, as I had for himself. But I am not very favourable to posthumous memorials in the monument way, and I should exceedingly regret to see any such appeal as you contemplate made public, remembering another public appeal that was made and responded to after Hood's death. I think that I best discharge my duty to my deceased friend, and best consult the respect and love with which I remember him, by declining to join in any such public endeavours as that which you (in all generosity and singleness of purpose, I am sure) advance. I shall have a melancholy gratification in privately assisting to place a simple and plain record over the remains of a great writer that should be as modest as he was himself, but I regard any other monument in connection with his mortal resting-place as a mistake.
I am, Sir, your faithful Servant.
Rev. James White.
Office of "Household Words," Tuesday, Oct. 19th, 1852.
My dear White,
We are now getting our Christmas extra number together, and I think you are the boy to do, if you will, one of the stories.
I propose to give the number some fireside name, and to make it consist entirely of short stories supposed to be told by a family sitting round the fire. I don't care about their referring to Christmas at all; nor do I design to connect them together, otherwise than by their names, as:
| The Grandfather's Story. |
| The Father's Story. |
| The Daughter's Story. |
| The Schoolboy's Story. |
| The Child's Story. |
| The Guest's Story. |
| The Old Nurse's Story. |
The grandfather might very well be old enough to have lived in the days of the highwaymen. Do you feel disposed, from fact, fancy, or both, to do a good winter-hearth story of a highwayman? If you do, I embrace you (per post), and throw up a cap I have purchased for the purpose into mid-air.
Think of it and write me a line in reply. We are all well and blooming.