Fanny.
Clarges Street, Monday, May 3rd, 1841.
Thank you, dearest H——, for your prompt compliance with my request about your travelling information.... About the daguerreotype, you know, I should have precisely the same objection to taking another person's appointed time that I have to mine being appropriated by somebody else; but Emily has made another appointment for me: she had made one for the day on which my sister arrived, which rather provoked me; but I was resigned, nevertheless, because I had told her I would go at any time she chose to name. She let me off, however; not, I believe, from any compassion for me, but because my father had set his heart upon my going with him to the private view of the new exhibition, just a quarter of an hour after the time I was to have been at the daguerreotypist's. So to the gallery I went, an hour after Adelaide had returned from Italy; as you know, I had not seen her for several years (indeed, not since my marriage). And so to the gallery I went, with buzzing in my ears and dizziness in my eyes, and an hysterical choking, which made me afraid to open my lips. Why my father was so anxious to go to this exhibition I hardly know; but I went to please him, and came back to please myself, without having an idea of a single picture in the whole collection. Emily has now made another appointment for me, or rather for you, early on Wednesday morning, and I hope we shall accomplish something at last.
Now you want to know something about Adelaide. There she sits in the next room at the piano, singing sample-singing, and giving a taste of her quality to Charles Greville, who, you know, is an influential person in all sorts of matters, and to whom Henry has written about her merits, and probable acceptability with the fashionable musical world. She is singing most beautifully, and the passionate words of love, longing, grief, and joy burst through that utterance of musical sound, and light up her whole countenance with a perfect blaze of emotion. As for me, the tears stream over my face all the time, and I can hardly prevent myself from sobbing aloud.... She has grown very large, I think almost as large as I remember my mother; she looks very well and very handsome, and has acquired something completely foreign in her tone and manner, and even accent.... She complains of the darkness of our skies and the dulness of our mode of life here as intolerable and oppressive to the last degree....
I cannot believe happiness to be the purpose of life, for when was anything ordained with an unattainable purpose?... But life, which, but for duty, seems always sad enough to me, appears sadder than usual when I try to look at it from the point of view of the happiness it contains.
The children are well; Lane has taken a charming likeness of them, of which I promise you a copy. God bless you, dearest H——. I do not lean on human love; I do not depend or reckon on it; nor have I ever mistaken any human being for my best friend.
Affectionately yours,
Fanny.
Clarges Street, May 21st.
Dearest H——,