No! my dearest Hal, I do not think that to one who believes that life is spiritual education it needs any very painful or difficult investigation of circumstances to perceive, not why such and such special trials are sent to certain individuals, but that all trial is the positive result of or has been incurred by error or sin; and beholding the beautiful face of bitterest adversity, for such is one of its aspects, that all trial is sent to teach us better things than we knew, or than we did, before. There is nothing for which God's mercy appears to me more praiseworthy than the essential essence of improvement, of progress, of growth, which can be expressed from the gall-apple of our sorrows. To each soul of man the needful task is set, the needful discipline administered, and therefore it doesn't seem to me to require much investigation into mere circumstances to accept my own trials. They are appointed to me because they are best for me, and whatever my apparent impatience under them, this is, in deed and truth, my abiding faith....
But it is past two o'clock in the morning. I am almost exhausted with packing and writing. Seven letters lie on my table ready to be sealed, seven more went to the post-office this afternoon; but though I will not sleep till I bid you good-night, I will not write any more than just that now. My fire is out, my room cold, and, being tired with packing, I am getting quite chilled. You must direct to me to the care of Edward Sartoris, Esq., Trinità dei Monti, Rome, and I will answer you, as you know. I will write to you to-morrow, that is to-day, when I get to Bannisters; or perhaps before I start, if I can get up early enough to get half an hour before breakfast.
Good-night. God bless you. I am unutterably sad, and feel as though I were going away from everybody, I know not whither—it is all vague, uncertain, indefinite, all but the sorrow which is inseparable from me, go where I will, a companion I can reckon upon for the rest of my life everywhere. As for the rest, if we did but recollect it, our next minute is always the unknown.
Ever yours,
Fanny.
Bannisters, Saturday, December 20th, 1845.
My dearest Harriet,
My last words and thoughts were yours last night; but this morning, when I hoped to have written to you again, I found it impossible to do so; so here I am in the room at Bannisters where you and I and Emily were sitting together a few weeks ago,—she on her knees, writing for a fly to take me to the steamer to-night, and I writing to you from this place, where it seems as if you were still sitting beside us. Emily won't let me send you your little square ink-bottle for Queen's heads, but says she will keep it for you, so there I leave it in her hands.
CHARLES GREVILLE. Charles Greville's book (for it is not a pamphlet) is called "The Policy of England to Ireland," or something as nearly like that as possible. My praise of it may occasion you some disappointment, for I am pleased with it more because it is so much better than anything I expected from him than because it is particularly powerful or striking in itself. The subject interests me a good deal, and the book is very agreeably and well written, and in a far better tone than I should have looked for in anything of his.
I have besought Mr. Lowndes to forward my letters to me without any delay, and I have no doubt he will do so....