... God knows I am admonished to patience, both by my own helplessness and the inefficiency of those who, it seems to me, ought to be able to help me....
Doubtless, my father reasonably regrets the independence which I might by this time have earned for myself in my profession, and feels anxious about my unprovided future. I have written to Chorley, the only person I know to whom I can apply on the subject, to get me some means of publishing the few manuscript verses I have left in some magazine or other.... If I cannot succeed in this, I shall try if I can publish my "English Tragedy," and make a few pounds by it. It is a wretchedly uncomfortable position, but compared with all that has gone before it is only uncomfortable.
I came down here yesterday, and found, though the night was rainy and extremely cold, dear Lord Dacre and B—— standing out on the door-step to receive me. She has grown tall, and stout, and very handsome.... Is it not wonderful that the spirit of life should be potent enough ever to make us forget the death perpetually hovering over and ready to pounce upon us? and yet how little dread, habitually, disturbs us, either for ourselves or others, lying all the time, as we do, within the very grasp of doom! Lord Dacre is looking well; my friend Lady Dacre is grown more deaf and much broken. Poor thing! she has had a severe trial, in the premature loss of those dearest to her....
God bless you, dear Hal. Good-by. Love to dear Dorothy.
Ever yours,
Fanny.
The Hoo, Welwyn, December 6th, 1845.
My dearest Hal,
SITTING FOR A PORTRAIT. I have been spending the greater part of the morning in sitting for my likeness to a young girl here, a Miss E——, daughter of some old friends of the Dacres, whose talent for drawing, and especially for taking likenesses, is uncommon.
That which Lawrence pronounced the most difficult task he ever undertook could hardly prove an easy one to a young lady artist, who has, however, succeeded in giving a very sufficient likeness of one of my faces; and I think it so pretty that I am charmed with it, as indeed I always have been with every likeness almost that has ever been taken of me, but the only true ones—the daguerreotypes. However, even daguerreotypes are not absolutely accurate; the process is imperfect, except for plane (not plain, you know) surfaces. Besides, after all, it takes a human hand to copy a human face, because of the human soul in both; and the great sun in heaven wants fire, light, and power, to reproduce that spark of divinity in us, before which his material glory grows pale.