“For the present there is no need of further interference; and I never hugged the aphorism, ‘Sufficient for the day,’ &c., with more satisfaction.
“As to Curry. The a/cs furnished were no a/cs. On the contrary, C. & H. pronounced them, on the test of a London accountant, ‘mere swindles.’... My hope is not to sell but to obtain some channel of purchase of the copyrights back again—in London (not C. & H., who have now begun a cheap issue of Dickens that will last some years),—and by a new and cheap edition, with notes, &c., make a better thing of it.
“I cannot say how anxiously I look to hearing from you about M’G. The whole thing has a gloomy aspect—that is, my present state of relations in Dublin and London gives me very grave alarm.
“I am glad my ‘Knight’ holds his ground with you. I trust I have not vulgarised the book merely by introducing low people, but I felt that mere nominal poverty could never be the full load of affliction high-born and high-minded people would experience in a fallen condition, and I was led to lay stress on the fact that altered social relations—inferior associations—are heavier evils than brown bread and weak congou.
“I knew—I felt while I wrote it, with a heart very full—that the verse of my poor father’s song would touch you.
“It is strange enough that the habit of describing emotions and sentiments in fiction should have heightened to a most painful degree my own susceptibilities, so that I really am as weak as a girl, and far more unable to buffet against the rocks of life than when, as a doctor, I encountered them really and bodily. Half a dozen years may have had its share in this, but only its share. Besides, we have been living a very retired solitary life,—my only neighbours are an old Austrian general and his staff. I have therefore been doing with my thoughts what they say has deteriorated Spanish nobility—ruining them by frequent intermarriage.
“I am also fretted by a kind of vague consciousness that I have better stuff in me than I have yet shown; and though I was just as often disposed to regret as to indulge this belief, the confession will not entirely leave me, acting like a blunt spur on a lazy horse,—enough to irritate him but not to increase his speed.”
To Mr Alexander Spencer.
“Hôtel Bain, Zurich, March 20, 1847.
“Your most welcome letter came after me here, where, in the vague pursuit of a less expensive residence, I have come, intending by reason of late events to shorten sail, not knowing what weather may be in store for us.